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I think those initial diagrams/explanations miss a key detail. The longest step in cooking burgers is the grilling step, in which the cook is just waiting for t

I think those initial diagrams/explanations miss a key detail. The longest step in cooking burgers is the grilling step, in which the cook is just waiting for the burgers to cook, and won't speed up the process by giving attention to one burger instead of 2. The idea that 3 burgers would take 12 minutes while 1 takes 4 isn't realistic, even without all the batch processing math later in the article. I still agree with the idea teams should do one thing at a time in general, but if you are going to do anything in parallel, it makes most sense to do other work when waiting for something to complete (as in the grilling step in this example)

kqr 4y ago
Now we're really taking the analogy apart until it's no longer reasonable, but I'll continue: Sometimes it makes sense to stand around waiting for the burger to cook. Maybe all you have to do are low-value burgers and it's nice to maintain an idle chef for any high-priority burger tasks that come in. Or there are important but non-burger tasks that need to be done but are easily deprioritised in favour of burgers.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  Where it really falls apart is that a restaurant has a predefined menu and no items are allowed to have unknown complexity (someone asking items out of menu just gets a “no”). Estimates are based on actual measures, not guesses. There will be accidents, but those will be rare enough to not have to be planned for. In that respect, a restaurant queue is a lot more akin to a factory, and is fundamentally different in nature.
muzani 4y ago
There's a book, Everything In Its Place, Dan Charnas, which does a good analysis of the analogies of cooking and productivity in the office. Basically it recommends doing the "process" tasks first, the ones that the rest rely on. In this case, it would be grilling burgers. In the office, it might be something like assigning tasks or approving PRs. Charnas recommends that planning starts by "first things first" as opposed to say, the Tim Ferriss, Brian Tracy, or Eisenhower methodology of most important things first. And often the first thing is to figure out which things come first. And yeah, the book also recommends finishing where possible. A dish 90% done might as well be 0% done, but it occupies mental space while it's not done.
- FearNotDaniel 4y ago
  That's a great read, although I remember reading it published under the title "Work Clean". A cursory glance at Amazon.co.uk looks like the two titles have identical text however the Kindle edition of "Work Clean" is half the price of the one re-issued as "Everything In Its Place", for anyone else interested...
topkai22 4y ago
This was the most glaring flaw of the post. They almost got there when they started talking about the “transaction costs” but failed to acknowledge idle times. To drive this home to software development, if I’m blocked on a requirements clarification, awaiting permissions to a data source, or blocked by a bug in an external system it certainly doesn’t make sense for me to just do nothing. I should pick up another task and work on that. It’s going to be near impossible to substantially limit WIP below the level that ensures near fully committed personnel. That means that as external blockers go up, so will WIP. It’s important to try to fix those things causing blockers (better up front requirements, automated permission processes, etc…) but different teams and organizations will have different fundamental limits on being idled on projects. For some software product feature teams this can be kept very low- a strong requirements process is established, the data needed is consistent and owned by the team, and reliance on 3rd party systems is low. Teams dealing in enterprise IT systems (like mine) often can’t, as much as we seek to improve things, there is a degree of irreducible complexity.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  For an expected short delay (like getting perms from an internal team), it might make sense to do nothing (on the product). I usually have a backlog of administrivia and it makes sense to tackle some of that during a short blockage rather than open unrelated WIP.
- sanitycheck 4y ago
  Strongly agree. I try to limit my WIP tasks to around 8, and even then it's a constant struggle to keep at least one unblocked. The burger shop analogy seems a little nonsensical too. Most of the time it takes for a burger to be made is waiting for the meat to cook. Conveyor grills exist, it's rare for grill space to be a limiting factor. So, burgers absolutely are assembled in parallel, it's a good example of the opposite strategy to the one the author is advocating.

kqr 4y ago

Now we're really taking the analogy apart until it's no longer reasonable, but I'll continue: Sometimes it makes sense to stand around waiting for the burger to cook. Maybe all you have to do are low-value burgers and it's nice to maintain an idle chef for any high-priority burger tasks that come in. Or there are important but non-burger tasks that need to be done but are easily deprioritised in favour of burgers.

makeitdouble 4y ago
Where it really falls apart is that a restaurant has a predefined menu and no items are allowed to have unknown complexity (someone asking items out of menu just gets a “no”). Estimates are based on actual measures, not guesses. There will be accidents, but those will be rare enough to not have to be planned for. In that respect, a restaurant queue is a lot more akin to a factory, and is fundamentally different in nature.

muzani 4y ago

There's a book, Everything In Its Place, Dan Charnas, which does a good analysis of the analogies of cooking and productivity in the office. Basically it recommends doing the "process" tasks first, the ones that the rest rely on. In this case, it would be grilling burgers. In the office, it might be something like assigning tasks or approving PRs. Charnas recommends that planning starts by "first things first" as opposed to say, the Tim Ferriss, Brian Tracy, or Eisenhower methodology of most important things first. And often the first thing is to figure out which things come first. And yeah, the book also recommends finishing where possible. A dish 90% done might as well be 0% done, but it occupies mental space while it's not done.

FearNotDaniel 4y ago
That's a great read, although I remember reading it published under the title "Work Clean". A cursory glance at Amazon.co.uk looks like the two titles have identical text however the Kindle edition of "Work Clean" is half the price of the one re-issued as "Everything In Its Place", for anyone else interested...

topkai22 4y ago

This was the most glaring flaw of the post. They almost got there when they started talking about the “transaction costs” but failed to acknowledge idle times. To drive this home to software development, if I’m blocked on a requirements clarification, awaiting permissions to a data source, or blocked by a bug in an external system it certainly doesn’t make sense for me to just do nothing. I should pick up another task and work on that. It’s going to be near impossible to substantially limit WIP below the level that ensures near fully committed personnel. That means that as external blockers go up, so will WIP. It’s important to try to fix those things causing blockers (better up front requirements, automated permission processes, etc…) but different teams and organizations will have different fundamental limits on being idled on projects. For some software product feature teams this can be kept very low- a strong requirements process is established, the data needed is consistent and owned by the team, and reliance on 3rd party systems is low. Teams dealing in enterprise IT systems (like mine) often can’t, as much as we seek to improve things, there is a degree of irreducible complexity.

sokoloff 4y ago
For an expected short delay (like getting perms from an internal team), it might make sense to do nothing (on the product). I usually have a backlog of administrivia and it makes sense to tackle some of that during a short blockage rather than open unrelated WIP.
sanitycheck 4y ago
Strongly agree. I try to limit my WIP tasks to around 8, and even then it's a constant struggle to keep at least one unblocked. The burger shop analogy seems a little nonsensical too. Most of the time it takes for a burger to be made is waiting for the meat to cook. Conveyor grills exist, it's rare for grill space to be a limiting factor. So, burgers absolutely are assembled in parallel, it's a good example of the opposite strategy to the one the author is advocating.