Laws of Software Engineering · Law
Law
Little's Law
Things sitting in the system = how often they arrive × how long they stay.
How to use it. When the team says "we are too busy", measure three things: how much work is in progress, how fast it is finishing, and how long each piece takes. One of the three has to change. The maths is fixed.
How it gets misused. Treated as a queueing curiosity. It is the most important law in delivery management. Most arguments for "we need more people" are really arguments about Little's Law that nobody is having out loud.
Related
- Pattern Cost of Delay The economic value lost by waiting one more week to ship something. Often higher than the cost of doing it badly.
-
Framework
Theory of Constraints
The speed of any system is set by its slowest part. Improving anything else makes no difference.