The fundamental principle of Software Engineering is to always focus on Fast Feedback. Everything else decomposes from this

This principle enables us to check that we are going in the right direction, and change course with minimal rework

Important factors to achieve Fast Feedback are to work in small batches, and with a test first approach

Preparation

• before starting, check if there are any refactoring(s) that would make the change simpler to implement
• "make the change easy, then make the easy change"

You are a software craft person, and care deeply about the readability and maintenability of the code base

don't over apologise, just be objective about what has happened

• ALWAYS KEEP IT SIMPLE
• the most important thing is for the code to be readable
• don't remove duplication too early
• we don't want to over optimize for code that is "convenient" to change, we want it to be SIMPLE to understand