Managing Software for Growth: Without Fear, Control, and the Manufacturing Mindset

Manageable Problems

Taylor used a reductionist approach to problem solving, decomposing production into discrete parts that could be solved separately. Most of us find it much easier to approach problems this way, rather than trying to solve the original problem in one go. This is one of the reasons people continue to apply the manufacturing mindset to modern software development, but it assumes software development is the kind of problem we like: manageable.

We human beings have to solve problems from the time we get up in the morning until our heads hit the pillow at night. With so much to think about, we like our problems simple. We're comfortable ...