A huge part of my work philosophy is heavily inspired by minimalism and my past experience with lean manufacturing and six sigma. I believe solutions to problems should be simple and elegant, not over-engineered. Ultimately, the perfect solution should solve exactly what it is supposed to solve, no more, no less.

Some quotes that accurately describe this philosophy, as well my interpretation of them, are the following.

With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk. - John von Neumann

My interpretation on John von Neumann’s quote is that increasing the number of parameters could make my solution look more complete, but is it worth the increased complexity? If you want to add a new parameter to solve a problem that don’t even exists, maybe you should not add it at all!

If you torture the data long enough, it will confess. - Ronald Coase

This one is related to over-engineering and Occam’s razor. Exaggerated and unnecessary data preprocessing just to confirm your hypothesis is a common pitfall to those who are obsessed with proving that their methods are better. Accept that your hypothesis might be wrong and don’t make your data confess otherwise. Remember that by disproving a hypothesis you’re also gaining information.