Insights
Fresh thinking on flow, capacity and the economics of getting the right projects finished. Newest first.
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The Frozen Portfolio: Why an Annual Plan Commits Your Constraint on the Least Information You Will Ever Have
Read the piece: The Frozen Portfolio: Why an Annual Plan Commits Your Constraint on the Least Information You Will Ever HaveAn annual plan is the largest batch you run, and it commits your scarcest capacity on the least information you will ever have.
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The Absorption Constraint: Why Your Finished Projects Are Not Earning Yet
Read the piece: The Absorption Constraint: Why Your Finished Projects Are Not Earning YetA delivered project earns nothing until someone adopts it, and the capacity to absorb change is a shared constraint of its own.
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The Shape of Delay: Why Two Projects Losing the Same Month Do Not Lose the Same Money
Read the piece: The Shape of Delay: Why Two Projects Losing the Same Month Do Not Lose the Same MoneyTwo projects each slip a month and carry the same amber status. One cost almost nothing. Delay has a shape, not just a rate.
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Phantom Capacity: Why Your Plans Are Built on Hours That Do Not Exist
Read the piece: Phantom Capacity: Why Your Plans Are Built on Hours That Do Not ExistTwenty engineer-days on the plan, sixteen after a sensible factor, and fewer again in reality. The hours that are counted and are not there.
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The Scope Ratchet: Why Projects Only Ever Grow, and What That Costs
Read the piece: The Scope Ratchet: Why Projects Only Ever Grow, and What That CostsNobody approved doubling the scope. It arrived one reasonable addition at a time, and the ratchet only ever turns one way.
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The Expedite Tax: Why Rushing One Project to the Front Delays Everything Behind It
Read the piece: The Expedite Tax: Why Rushing One Project to the Front Delays Everything Behind ItMoving one job to the front of your scarcest team looks free. Everything behind it pays, and no report shows the bill.
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Decision Latency: Why Your Projects Wait Longer for a Yes Than They Spend Being Worked On
Read the piece: Decision Latency: Why Your Projects Wait Longer for a Yes Than They Spend Being Worked OnProjects spend more of their life waiting for a yes than being worked on, and nothing in the reporting counts that time.
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The Non-Constraint Trap: Why Making Your Other Teams Faster Does Nothing
Read the piece: The Non-Constraint Trap: Why Making Your Other Teams Faster Does NothingMaking a team faster that was never setting your pace changes nothing you deliver, and usually makes the queue behind it worse.
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The Rework Spiral: Why Redoing Work Costs Far More Than Doing It Once
Read the piece: The Rework Spiral: Why Redoing Work Costs Far More Than Doing It OnceRework spends your scarcest hour twice, and the cost of being wrong escalates with how late in the work you find out.
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The Pause Penalty: What Shelving a Project Really Costs
Read the piece: The Pause Penalty: What Shelving a Project Really CostsA paused project is not a free project. The value clock keeps running, restart is not resume, and the capacity was never really freed.