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Local Speed and Global Speed
Leadership / Dualities
Optimising for speed in one place can slow down the whole system.
Local Speed
How fast one team or person moves on their own tasks.
Global Speed
How fast the entire organisation delivers value.
The Tension
- A team that ships fast but breaks things for other teams has high local speed and low global speed.
- Skipping documentation speeds up one team but slows everyone who depends on them.
- Cutting corners on tests speeds up today's sprint but slows next quarter's work.
Examples
- Merging without code review: locally fast, globally risky.
- Building a custom solution instead of using the shared platform: locally fast, globally fragmented.
- Not investing in CI/CD: locally fine, globally slow.
The Rule
Optimise for global speed. Accept local slowdowns that make the whole system faster.
This is counterintuitive and requires leadership to set the right incentives.
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