Ever since reading 's book Tempo, I've been thinking about how the idea of Tempo makes for a useful mental model for understanding how software gets built: 🧵
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First, a bit of term clarification. Tempo is more than 'beats per minute.' Tempo = the combination of rhythm, emotion, and energy .
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People have a tempo. You get up, have coffee, do a daily standup. Productivity varies by times of day. By recognizing these times, you can increase productivity by doing your most challenging tasks during your highest energy periods.
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Projects have a tempo. Energetic at first, motivated by the new idea. Then you have "the dip" in the middle. If you survive, There's a cresendo at the end when you see the light at the end of the tunnel.
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Scrum is rhythm systematized.
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"Move fast and break things" is tempo as philosophy. You can move fast without breaking things, you can also break things slowly, which is known as "technical debt"
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It’s not a counterexample so much as a different regime of the same principle. If you know more you can adopt the more sophisticated version. The tempo spectrum from pure trial and error to precise deterministic actions is a function of how much you know about what you’re doing.

