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.
Scrum is rhythm systematized.
"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.

