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Our society has produced software teams that produce highly reliable software (space shuttle, banking technology, and embedded systems) that don't leave room for a great deal of speed it innovation. Let's call them Type 1 teams.

We've also produced "move fast and break stuff" software organizations, who have realized moving fast and failing is a better financial outcome than safely arriving at a suboptimal destination (Facebook, Twitter, tons of startups). Let's call them Type 2 teams.

Neither Type 1 nor Type 2 teams are Bad or Evil. They are simply suited to different applications. What happened here is, an organization that was unable to distinguish between these types of teams hired a Type 2 team for a Type 1 job.

Generalized example, usual caveats apply.




The majority of software teams fall outside of this classification.


Agreed. It's really more of a gradient. Regardless, the problem is not where a team lies on the gradient, but where a team lies in relation to the fundamental needs of the problem to be solved.




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