“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
The purpose for the dev team is to be useful (1). We will accomplish this by being more productive and building the right things. Tactical plans to achieve this purpose will vary greatly. It is more useful to have a set of guiding principles which can be applied as the situation evolves. These principles can be used in any situation as a framework for decision-making that will guide us forward.
We don’t confuse productivity with efficiency. Efficiency is a fine goal but we’re not trying to do more with less. That can work in a factory but not in a creative endeavour where our speed is managed by our knowledge (2).
Instead, we want to do more with the same (3). We will accomplish that by optimizing our approach to delivery and expanding our use of technical leverage.