Here’s the point I was trying to make originally—the Bake Cakes system remains exactly as it was before. One yummy, cooled cake exits this system

Software Design: Tidy First?

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2024-10-18 11:00:02

Here’s the point I was trying to make originally—the Bake Cakes system remains exactly as it was before. One yummy, cooled cake exits this system every 45 minutes. We haven’t introduced any change (except the possibility that the batter will go stale & we’ll have to pause the system while we remix batter). We might pretend that we’re putting more mixed batter into Bake Cakes, but we’re not.

Once we’ve reached our steady 45-minute rhythm, that exit rate dictates “the system”. If we appear to be feeding work into the system faster than that exit rate, then there must be another larger system at work. Pay attention to which system you’re working on. Optimizing Bake Cakes is completely different than optimizing Placate Yelling People.

Application of “pay attention to which system you’re optimizing” to non-cake, perhaps ticket-based systems, perhaps those delivering software-based value to customers, is left as an exercise for the reader.