Combined Arms Doctrine for Work

Keep the work parallel, the groups small, and the resources local When presented with a set of problems which grow superlinearly intractable as N increases, our best bet is to keep N small. If the organization’s intent is to increase value delivery by hiring more people, work efforts must be as independent as possible. Leaders should develop practices and processes to ensure that the work efforts which their strategies consider parallel are actually parallel. Shared resources should be continuously managed for contention, and where possible, the resources a group needs should be colocated with that group (e.g., if the work involves a lot of design, staff a designer to that group). Combined arms doctrine isn’t just for soldiers.

A screenshot presents a mock management or engineering doctrine about keeping work parallel, teams small, and resources local. The punchline is the sudden comparison to “combined arms doctrine,” a military concept, applied to software and organizational work. It is used as a humorous reaction to overcomplicated teamwork, coordination overhead, or overly serious workplace advice.

• @jemalloc / 959 2022-09-13