When we're part of a complex system, such as software development, it's easy to believe that doing more in each phase of the SDLC will lead to higher efficiency.
For instance, if we need to set up a test environment to system-integration-test a new feature, and this takes a while to make operational, we'll be inclined to increase the size of the batch of work to make up the time lost setting up the environment.
Once we start to batch work together, and because it's complicated and requires so much setup time, the thinking is that it won't do any harm to add a bit more to the batch, and so it begins to grow. While this can lead to local efficiency, it becomes problematic when we discover an issue because ...
