[acsowerby]

This analogy seems really strong. I don't know much about war though so I might miss some of the nuances!

The bubble of control sounds like a great way to visualise what you need focus on (reminds me of the "circle of control" from the book "Seven habits of highly effective people").

"develop a lot of discipline, starting with formations and strict routine". This makes a lot of sense and completely fits with the other analogies I use (like playing jazz, football and running an agile team). It reinforces my belief that you need to have well-practised skills for how to do things so that all your focus can be placed on what to do.

I also really agree with the point on communication. It's a key feedback loop and helps people to synchronise and keep their context up to date. I like to set this up via repeating events so that it's never too long between syncs.

I never thought before about having people separate from the direction-setter (leader, project manager) who would recce for safety purposes. I'll have to mull on that a while!

Thanks!

[muzani]

Oh yeah the recon and support teams are some of the best tools we've had for reducing risk.

At the very least it highlights high priority obstacles, like whether an API is running properly or able to do what it should. And system analysts are awesome for making sure a sales team doesn't overpromise.

Support teams are great too. Like if you have a huge, expensive, time constrained project involving a technology like Firebase, it would be worth it to have a Firebase expert sit around the office to ask questions to. It's often more cost effective than throwing more programmers at the problem. At some point, extra programmers just conflict with one another, but support won't.