An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management

by Will Larson

Once you have those problems, return to your rounds of engaging with experienced leaders at other companies, and ask them how they’ve made those trade-offs before. Ask them for their stories. Ask them for the context that made one path perfect early on, and why they changed their minds as their company grew larger. Incorporate everything you’ve learned into your strategy document, and you’re done. Well, almost. The one remaining problem is that almost no one will have the time to soak up the full detail of your overly precise document, so the final step is to distill it into something comprehensible without hours of close reading. I’m still working on the best way to do this, but I suspect that it’s cutting all unnecessary, and even most essential, complexity in order to capture as much of the meaning as possible in three to four bullet points.