Rules are often an admission that incentives were never designed
Rules are often an admission that incentives were never designed.
A team makes documentation mandatory.
Compliance goes up for a month. Then people start writing just enough to satisfy the rule. The document exists. The knowledge still doesn't.
The problem was never effort. It was that nobody saw a reason to spend time documenting work that wasn't helping them deliver faster, close more deals, or avoid repeating mistakes.
Mandatory policies can create activity without creating the outcome they were meant to produce.
Every rule changes incentives, whether you intended it or not.
Before asking whether something should be mandatory, ask what behavior the current incentives are rewarding. If the easiest path to success points in the wrong direction, people will optimize around the rule instead of the result.
Good operators spend less time writing policies and more time making the desired behavior the rational choice.
A rule can enforce behavior.
An incentive can make the behavior stick.