Painting harbours taught me about pruning processes

Overview
The LinkedIn post shares an anecdote about a harbour in Iceland where a yellow paint mistake led to a lasting, unexplained practice. It uses this story to highlight how organizations often retain processes without understanding their original purpose, leading to inefficiency.

Key Takeaways

• Record the "why" behind every process to enable future tuning or removal.
• Unexamined processes can become hidden constraints, reducing predictability and increasing effort.
• Regularly review and prune outdated procedures to maintain efficiency.

Who Would Benefit

• Engineering managers looking to improve team productivity.
• Technical leaders interested in process optimization.
• Anyone responsible for organizational change or continuous improvement.

Frameworks and Methodologies

• Theory of Constraints (TOC)
• Systems Thinking
• Lean Process Improvement