In a one-act play set in an office meeting room, an engineering manager and tech lead discuss the “carefulness knob” used to allocate effort in software development. Exploring the efficiency-thoroughness trade-off, they realize balancing speed and caution is crucial. Surprisingly, turning up the carefulness knob can delay projects while turning it down may increase incident risks. The play ends with the realization that adapting to risk is an implicit tradeoff, and explicitly setting the carefulness knob at the right level is crucial. The message conveyed is that while being careful is important, finding the right balance between caution and efficiency is key in software development.
https://surfingcomplexity.blog/2024/10/29/the-carefulness-knob/