I'm a bit confused by the authors use of the words entropy and entropic, starting specifically with this point:
> Don’t let entropy get at your daily routine. Avoid entropy-driven work
In a physical sense, my understanding of entropy is that it's a degenerative phenomenon, a lowest common denominator - it doesn't create anything. This point means avoiding distracting or sporadic work, which is a test of discipline. But the rest of this point and others further down using words like 'entropy-driven' work are meaningless.
I'm sure there's a good point to be made here about valuable work in large corporations, but the (over)use of the word entropy has lost me.
Entropy is the measure of disorder in a system, so my interpretation here was that you shouldn't take on work that was generated by organizational disorder. An example I have in mind is when someone on the product side asks for a new feature that you know wouldn't take much time at all. Even though you could knock it out quickly, the correct action is to have them go through proper feature request channels.
I get a lot of fulfillment out of knocking out quick features/bugs. Usually I just consider it my "10% time". Is that really a problem as long as I'm not chasing geese all the time?
Your example is right on the money. I used to be consumed by organizational disorder, and even worse, wasn't aware that it was happening. Agile is no magic solution but it can be a vehicle to creating organizational order if you need it, especially if it's a hot buzz word in your company.
Scrum, if you do it right, is precisely the solution. Scrum specifically rejects the idea of "just doing something on the side".
Unfortunately, most organizations believe in cults and magic, and believe (and act) that Scrum is a cargo cult where you say the magic words and hold the magic rituals and get the results.
> Don’t let entropy get at your daily routine. Avoid entropy-driven work
In a physical sense, my understanding of entropy is that it's a degenerative phenomenon, a lowest common denominator - it doesn't create anything. This point means avoiding distracting or sporadic work, which is a test of discipline. But the rest of this point and others further down using words like 'entropy-driven' work are meaningless.
I'm sure there's a good point to be made here about valuable work in large corporations, but the (over)use of the word entropy has lost me.