Slow decisions are the problem, not slow code

Speed is about removing the friction that makes smart people hesitate. “Bias towards action” when you can.

When a project drags, the instinct is to blame velocity: people aren’t working hard enough, the codebase is messy, there aren’t enough engineers. But in my experience, slow code is often a symptom. Slow decisions are the disease.

If decisions routinely take weeks or months, look deeper. Missing context means people can’t evaluate tradeoffs. Unclear ownership means everyone’s waiting for someone else to decide. Fear of accountability means people hedge instead of commit.

The fastest engineering team I ever worked with wasn’t the one with the best programmers. It was the one where decisions happened in hours instead of weeks because the authority was clear, the context was shared, and being wrong wasn’t a career risk.

https://addyosmani.com/blog/14-more-lessons/

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