Adam Keys is Thinking

As goes writing, so goes software development teams:

“Having a method, a process, makes my writing more consistently good. This might sound like a win, but it is a problem. The usefulness and beauty of essays follow a power law, where the outliers create almost all the value—so if I make my essays more consistent, I remove not only the mistakes but also much of the upside. A method can, if used wisely, be a tool that helps you see possibilities. It can’t replace paying close attention to the material and figuring out what it is asking of you.”

— Henrik Karlsson, How I Write Essays

Growing teams are often nostalgic for the times when they were smaller. Maybe it’s not Founder Mode or yearning for a time when there was more low-hanging fruit. Perhaps they’re remember a time when they could swing for the fences more often at the expense of striking out more often? That is, processes designed for predictability and throughput weren’t constraining the magnitude of their big wins or their focus on all the details that make something excellent.