I like the idea of at least targeting a high fraction of total bandwidth for "making stuff better".
My reference to "capability traps" wasn't accidental, it's a serious risk to any business where maintenance and improvement has low observability vs production outputs[0]. In that situation economists rightly predict that effort is skewed towards what can be observed more easily ("equal compensation principle")[1].
Under those conditions it's easier to fix a time-spent target and observe time allocated, even if only approximately.
My reference to "capability traps" wasn't accidental, it's a serious risk to any business where maintenance and improvement has low observability vs production outputs[0]. In that situation economists rightly predict that effort is skewed towards what can be observed more easily ("equal compensation principle")[1].
Under those conditions it's easier to fix a time-spent target and observe time allocated, even if only approximately.
[0] https://web.mit.edu/nelsonr/www/Repenning%3DSterman_CMR_su01...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...