Reading series
The Internal Systems Series
The shape of the systems inside a team: syncs that become third systems, dashboards nobody opens, taxonomies without death rules, hand-maintained copies, tool limits posing as design goals, and maps that show attention.
6 posts, written to be read in order. Each part stands alone if you arrive mid-series.
- Part 1 of 6
Every Sync Is a Third System
The integration ticket promised to connect the tracker and the repo. What it actually shipped was a third system: unbudgeted, unowned, and failing quietly in both directions.
- Part 2 of 6
Build the Snapshot Before the Dashboard
The live dashboard is approved in the meeting where the demo gets applause. The weekly CSV is approved by someone opening it every Monday for a year. Only one of those is demand.
- Part 3 of 6
Every Taxonomy Needs a Death Rule
Naming day is exciting and retirement day is nobody's job. A structure with a creation ritual and no death ritual stays accurate for exactly one cycle, then becomes confident misinformation.
- Part 4 of 6
Never Hand-Maintain What the System Can Derive
The architecture doc says the service owns pricing. The service says something else now. One of them was hand-maintained, and it is not the one that runs in production.
- Part 5 of 6
A Tool's Limit Is Not a Design Goal
The design doc cited a number from the tool's documentation as if it were a requirement. Nobody asked which question the number answers, because nobody noticed a decision being made.
- Part 6 of 6
Map Attention, Not Effort
The map of the codebase sized by lines of code showed where the mass was. The same map sized by change frequency showed where the team actually lives. Only one of them was about the work.