Effectiveness over efficiency
Efficiency is about minimizing waste. Effectiveness is about achieving the right outcomes. The two are in conflict, and here's why prioritizing effectiveness is the best choice.
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Now, let's dive into today's micro-topic!
In short
🛠️ Efficiency focuses on minimizing waste and maximizing output goes in the wrong direction: they should prioritize effectiveness (doing the right thing) which requires sacrificing some efficiency.
⚠️ Organizations obsessed with efficiency struggle to adapt. Tight processes leave no room for reassessment, trapping teams into following outdated plans and missing critical opportunities to pivot.
⏳ Slack time is crucial for innovation and strategic thinking. It allows teams to validate assumptions, adapt based on new information, and focus on solving the right problems, driving sustainable success.
Efficiency ≠ Effectiveness
Efficiency is about doing things with minimum waste, streamlining processes, and maximizing output. It sounds good—until it isn’t. Why? Because you can be highly efficient at doing the wrong thing.
Effectiveness, on the other hand, is about doing the right thing.
Achieving both is hard, because they are fundamentally in conflict: efficiency focuses on short-term optimization, often driven by departmental metrics or isolated decisions. Effectiveness requires strategic thinking and making choices based on long-term impact, even if it means sacrificing some efficiency in the moment.
The Trap of Over-Optimized Efficiency
A common error of most companies is focusing too much on efficiency. Highly optimized processes make it hard to pivot, and questioning the current direction is often seen as disruptive. In an overly efficient organization, there’s no room for reevaluation—everyone is busy maximizing output based on yesterday’s plan, even if the plan is outdated.
When efficiency is the priority, the ability to change course is eliminated. It’s like speeding down a highway without knowing if you’re headed in the right direction. By the time you realize you need a turn, you’re already miles off track. This is why effective organizations intentionally build in slack: room to pause, reassess, and make course corrections when needed.
Effectiveness Requires Slack
To be effective, you need slack—time for critical thinking, experimentation, and reflection. Efficiency-focused teams eliminate slack in the name of productivity, but this makes adaptability almost impossible. Without slack, teams can’t stop to ask, Are we even solving the right problem?
Slack is not wasted time; it’s the missing ingredient for innovation. It allows teams to:
Reassess priorities and direction
Validate assumptions with real user feedback
Pivot quickly when new information emerges
The Case for Effectiveness
When given the choice, always favor effectiveness over efficiency. It’s better to go slower in the right direction than faster in the wrong one. Here’s why:
Effectiveness drives long-term success: Achieving the right outcome is what ultimately matters. Optimizing the process of doing the wrong thing is pointless.
Efficiency without effectiveness is a false economy: It looks good on paper, but it hides deeper problems that surface later as costly rework or missed opportunities.
Adaptability requires a balance: To stay responsive and adaptable, you need a bit of slack and a willingness to question the status quo.
If you are interested in going deeper into the topic of slack time and effectiveness, have a look at the wonderful book from Tom Demarco.
Until next time, happy coding! 🤓👩💻👨💻