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Tom DeMarco

“In addition to being flat-out hard to do, building effectiveness into an organization often comes into direct conflict with increasing efficiency. This is an unfortunate side effect of optimization, first noted by the geneticist R. A. Fisher, and now referred to as Fisher’s fundamental theorem: “The more highly adapted an organism becomes, the less adaptable it is to any new change.” Fisher’s example was the giraffe. It is highly adapted to food found up among the tree branches, but so unadaptable to a new situation that it can not even pick up a peanut from the ground at the zoo. The more optimized an organism (organization) is, the more likely that the slack necessary to help it become more effective has been eliminated.”

Tom DeMarco, Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency
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Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency by Tom DeMarco
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