Theory of Agile Constraints

Good theories are like good chai — strong, simple, and best shared. Theory of Agile Constraints qualifies.

What the theory says, finally, is that people are predictable in their unpredictability. That is useful knowledge. It lets you forgive more and be surprised less.

Strip it to the floor and you find an old instruction: look carefully, judge slowly, act decently. The new name exists because the old instruction keeps being forgotten.

Watch a good tailor in a busy lane. He does not measure twice out of fear; he measures twice out of respect for the cloth. Teams led with that spirit rarely need scolding.

An organisation is only a group of people who have agreed, for now, to pull in roughly the same direction. And when you forget it — you will — the world will remind you. It is a faithful tutor.