(2021-09-29) GeePawHill Many More Much Smaller Steps - First Sketch

GeePawHill: MMMSS - Many More Much Smaller Steps - First Sketch. The first plank of my take on fixing the trade is MMMSS: If you want more value faster, take Many More Much Smaller Steps.

The first thing to get about MMMSS is that it represents a radical change. It seems like a minor tweak, but it’s not, it is a complete reversal of a whole body of existing trade practice, the model I call "Rework Avoidance Theory".

A short period at the beginning of work to establish a walking skeleton — important when we start from scratch — followed by an almost meandering path from left to right over time.

Each step meets a minimum of three criteria. 1) It must be small enough. 2) It must be shippable on completion. 3) It must not make things worse.

So the reason that line isn’t aimed straight at the destination is because there was no step at that location that met those three criteria.

For reference, here’s the approach to change that we see most commonly in the trade. This is what Rework Avoidance Theory (RAT) has us all walking around trying to do to be efficient.

we got a helluva case we’re gonna have to make to suggest that the first path is more efficient than the second one.

I’m gonna blurt that case out, quick like a bunny, but each of its elements is a whole argument in and of itself, and a whole other thread for later

There are four elements to the case.

Actual change isn’t plane geometry. It doesn’t happen in Platonic Flatland, but in an incredibly twisty, complicated, loopy, ever-shifting high-dimensional, murky, and curved manifold, one we call "reality".

Directed parallelism — where a central intelligence plans, monitors, and coordinates multiple streams of activity — has a sharply rising non-linear cost curve, at even very small numbers of streams

Small steps have intrinsic value in human enterprises.

Steerability, interruptability, grokkability, rhythm, motivation, focus, reversability, and undirected target parallelism, all of these are of huge benefit in human enterprise

Embracing change, in technique and attitude, is increasinly well understood, and the costs of avoiding change are extremely high. When we assume change, welcome it, build for it — when we embrace change — we far out-perform the old rework avoidance theory.

MMMSS isn’t about changing code, or product, or process. It’s about changing. Making changes, responding to changes, embracing change in every domain. (agile)