Effectiveness over efficiency
It is the balance that matters
Three days ago, my colleague Willem-Jan Ageling asked people about their opinion on what is more important in Agile approaches — effectiveness or efficiency.
I thought about my answer, had several iterations in my head and decided to make it a whole blog post. As a comment, I left a quote that came immediately to my mind:
[V]alue optimization means striving to find the right balance of effectiveness, efficiency, and predictability in how work gets done:
- An effective workflow is one that delivers what customers want when they want it.
- An efficient workflow allocates available economic resources as optimally as possible to deliver value.
- A predictable workflow means being able to accurately forecast value delivery within an acceptable degree of uncertainty.(source: The Kanban Guide)
My first take on the question is “effectiveness over efficiency”. It is more important to solve the problem (effectiveness) before optimizing your solution (efficiency). That does not mean that efficiency can be ignored. You are always operating under constraints. If you waste too much time or money, the party will be over.
Note that effectiveness does not strictly come before efficiency. There are even some optimization methods where you switch the usual order: Instead of first finding a valid solution and then optimizing it, you can start with an optimal solution and then iterate to make it a valid one. By the way, I remember the distinction between effectiveness and efficiency being made in a lesson about project management in university.
My second thought was on why efficiency is sometimes a negative term in the Agile community. I think this is because in traditional companies, there are many people whose job seems to be to remind everyone about efficiency. Those persons are process owners. They believe that if everyone follows the processes, things will work out, and if there are problems, it’s the other people’s fault.
Using terms from Cynefin, this can work in a clear or complicated environment. In a clear or complicated environment, competition works via efficiency. In the chaotic environment, the processes are like emergency procedures, and if they work, great! However, there is no clear relationship between cause and effect there. That is the case as well in the complex environment. Complexity eliminates analysis as a way to predetermine effectiveness. Therefore, you have to find out what works first before optimizing efficiency. Focusing in efficiency first (or not showing any concern for effectiveness) is a sign that you might not be aware whether or that you are in a complex environment.
My third idea was that this distinction is very similar to outcomes over output. You still have to care for outputs. No output, no outcome!
The fourth iteration about the question was single- and double-loop learning. Single-loop learning is about efficiency (“improving what we are doing”), double-loop learning about effectiveness (“changing what we are doing”).
Lastly, a thought experiment on why all three terms from the Kanban Guide matter. Imagine three food delivery services that excel at two and completely lack the third one. Company A will reliably deliver food at a competitively low price — but it does not satisfy your hunger or appetite. Company B will reliably deliver food you love — but it is horribly expensive, because they are not good at managing their business, and the higher costs are passed down to the customers. Company C will deliver food you love at a competitively low price — but you have no clue when it will arrive (not even a time window of three hours). None of the three would give you a nice experience.
Peter Schilling: Major Tom (Völlig losgelöst…)
