📖 Business
Biz - System Fixes vs Tactical Support
Larson's framework for distinguishing between two fundamentally different types of interventions when a team is struggling. Tactical support addresses symptoms — it buys time. System fixes address root causes — they solve problems. Most managers default to tactical support because it is faster, easier, and more visible. But repeatedly applying tactical support to a problem that requires a system fix is the organizational equivalent of treating a broken bone with painkillers: the patient feels better temporarily but the fracture never heals.
2
Minutes
2
Concepts
+45
XP
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How It Works
Tactical support (short-term, addresses symptoms):
- Lend an engineer from another team for a sprint
- Extend a deadline
- Reduce scope on a deliverable
- Step in personally to unblock a critical path
- Bring in a contractor for a specific deliverable
System fix (structural, addresses root cause):
- Hire to fill a persistent capacity gap
- Reorganize team boundaries to match actual work patterns
- Change the team's mandate to align with what they're actually doing
- Fix broken tooling or infrastructure that creates recurring drag
- Redesign an on-call rotation that burns people out
The diagnostic heuristic: if you've provided tactical support for the same problem three times, it needs a system fix. The first time is a reasonable response. The second time is a pattern. The third time is a design failure.
Both interventions have a place:
- Tactical support is correct when the problem is genuinely temporary (a single engineer on leave, a one-time deadline pressure).
- System fixes are correct when the problem is structural (persistent understaffing, misaligned team boundaries, broken tooling).