People Laws (part 1) 6th Law = Optimize the System

“…when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in thought advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.”
– Lord Kelvin

“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.”
– Lord Kelvin

As I try to describe the laws of agile physics, I often feel that we – any of us – are barely beginning to postulate any true science.  However, I believe Lord Kelvin was wrong in both his quotes. I see value in expressing even those laws that are not quantifiable.  I’ve even tried to express laws that are based on math with simple statements of meaning. The important thing about laws or principles is that when violated there are consequences and costs. You don’t get full value without following them.

In that spirit, I propose a some human element laws of agile physics in the next few posts.  These are not mathematical in basis and can only be quantified and optimized by trial and error, but they are no less important when ensuring agile processes are properly structured. They work together with value statements to direct successful agile development.

The sixth law of agile physics:

Optimize the entire system from the top down for maximum impact. Or the corollary, optimization happens only up to the lowest level of active management.

It is important to understand that development happens at four or more levels in most organizations:

• strategy/organization level – What competencies and products, what customer segments, what resources and funding, which opportunities exploited, what threats addressed, what broad timelines
• product/group level – what architecture, what quality, what sales and support, what products
• release/project level – which team, what features, what deliverables, what plan
• individual/functional level – what tasks, what tools, what methods, what interactions

While agile works at any of these levels, it is best applies from the top down. It does little good to cut in half the time to develop a widget, if it still takes multiple years to get it funded. There are few benefits in developing great features if sales cannot sell them or implementation takes longer.  It does little good to make development more productive if testing suffers or the wrong tasks get done faster.

Agile’s benefits only rise to the lowest level of support.  A systems view from the top is needed to reap its full benefits.

This means that agile practices need to be at least understood by executive level sponsors.  At best, it means they believe in and actively support them and use them to run the business at the highest levels. Agile practices should be used in Strategic Planning, Governance and Budgeting, Project Management Offices, and on Executive Teams.  Lacking a comprehensive approach, using the principles and applying the laws can only optimize part of the overall system.