Noise Between Stations has a quick piece on Premature optimization:
“Premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming.” — Donald Knuth
I think you can replace the word programming with the word design and that would still be true.
Similarly, I would say that if you replace programming with business, you get a key to the theory of constraints. Look at the whole system before fixing it. As a reminder
- Identify the constraint.
- Squeeze everything you can out of the constraint.
- Subordinate everything else to the constraint.
- Elevate the constraint.
- If you've moved the constraint, start over.
Update: Fixed broken link above.