Building on Matthew Ström-Awn’s argument that true quality emerges from decentralized, ground-level ownership, Sean Goedecke writes an essay exploring how software companies navigate the tension between formalized control and the informal, often invisible work that actually drives product excellence.

But first, what does legibility even mean?

What does legibility mean to a tech company, in practice? It means:

• The head of a department knows, to the engineer, all the projects the department is currently working on
• That head also knows (or can request) a comprehensive list of all the projects the department has shipped in the last quarter
• That head has the ability to plan work at least one quarter ahead (ideally longer)
• That head can, in an emergency, direct the entire resources of the department at immediate work

Note that “shipping high quality software” or “making customers happy” or even “making money” is not on this list. Those are all things tech companies want to do, but they’re not legibility.

Goedecke argues that while leaders prize formal processes and legibility to facilitate predictability and coordination, these systems often overlook the messier, less measurable activities that drive true product quality and user satisfaction.

All organizations - tech companies, social clubs, governments - have both a legible and an illegible side. The legible side is important, past a certain size. It lets the organization do things that would otherwise be impossible: long-term planning, coordination with other very large organizations, and so on. But the illegible side is just as important. It allows for high-efficiency work, offers a release valve for processes that don’t fit the current circumstances, and fills the natural human desire for gossip and soft consensus.