An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management

by Will Larson

The second step is to identify policies that you will apply to address the challenge. These describe the general approach that you’ll take, and are often trade-offs between two competing goals. Continuing the above example, you might choose to allow short-term performance to dip in order to invest into long-term performance, combined with a policy of proactive expectation-setting with your stakeholders. Conversely, you might choose to take a hill-climbing approach to long-term performance, with iterative short-term improvement leading to improved long-term performance. Both are valid guiding policies, and both embrace the reality that you have limited resources to invest. When you read bad guiding policies, you think, “so what?” because its found a way to justify entrenching the status quo. When you read good guiding policies, you think, “Ah, that’s really going to annoy Anna, Bill, and Claire,” because the approach takes a clear stance on competing goals.