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The 80% setpoint is inspired by the waiting time of a specific type of queue (credit to Don Reinertsen for this graph, which is my favorite!)
It might not be the “one correct” setpoint, but it’s certainly better than loading an interconnected resource at 100% – you are then guaranteed to get exploding waiting times…
- which lead to firefighting,
- which leads to a drop in work output quality,
- which leads to frustration and blame,
- which leads to more judgement errors,
- which lead to a drop of actual throughout (and potentially a step-wise drop in capacity),
- which leads to the first step in this downward spiral again.
And round and round things go, and then someone jumps in and offers the miracle cure of OKR or stand-ups or whatever is the Flavor Of The Month “solution”, with little to no actual addressing of the root cause: some managers’ primary drive not for actual control, but for the illusion of control.
Studying the basics of Queuing Theory delivers important “aha moments” for smashing wicked feedback loops, instead of chasing after “daemon symptoms” ad nauseam.
