Effective or efficient? Don't confuse the two
Reaching your goal, or reaching it with the fewest resources possible: these aren't the same thing. You can be one without the other — and ideally both.
1 min read
People often confuse being effective with being efficient. Yet the difference matters: once you understand it, it becomes easier to tell whether you, and the people around you, are effective, efficient, or both.
- Effectiveness is reaching your goals.
- Efficiency is using the fewest resources possible.
It’s entirely possible to be efficient without being effective, and vice versa.
An example
Reaching your destination by car on time is effective. But if you burned far more gas than necessary, it wasn’t efficient. Conversely, obsessing over fuel use doesn’t guarantee you’ll arrive on time — or even at the right destination.
To grasp the difference, I also like this image: swatting a fly with a cannonball is effective, but it certainly isn’t efficient.
In your software development teams, are you effective, efficient, or both? The cynics will even add: neither. Unfortunately, that’s possible too.