Trade-offs & Economics
Architecture is economics with diagrams. These models help you price decisions, sequence work, and spend scarce attention and engineering time where it pays off.
- No. 033
Everything Is a Trade-off
There are no best practices, only trade-offs in context. If you can't name the downside, you don't understand the choice.
- No. 034
Technical Debt as Interest
Shortcuts are loans: they buy speed today and charge interest on every future change.
- No. 035
Cost of Delay
Quantify what it costs not to have something yet, then prioritise by value lost per unit of time.
- No. 036
Last Responsible Moment
Delay irreversible commitments until the point where waiting would eliminate an important option.
- No. 037
Innovation Tokens
Every organisation can afford only a few novel technologies. Spend them where they create real advantage.
- No. 038
Total Cost of Ownership
The purchase price is the smallest part of what a technology costs over its lifetime.
- No. 039
Sunk Cost Fallacy
Past investment is gone either way. Decide based on future costs and benefits only.
- No. 040
Pareto Principle
A minority of causes drives the majority of effects. Find the vital few.
- No. 041
Jevons Paradox
Making a resource cheaper or more efficient often increases total consumption of it.