Vendor Gravity Force F_g · Ch 2Sunk cost × political capital ÷ migration effort². You can't fight the well; orbit it.
Worked example — A 2009 core policy ledger
About $40M sunk. The COO's entire tenure is attached to it. And — this is the part everyone forgets to score — there is a costed, staffed migration plan sitting on a shelf from last year.
It came out at 2.0. Yellow — heavy, but not immovable.
The migration plan is the only thing holding that number down. Take it away — score the migration path a 3, because nobody can describe it — and the identical system reads 8.0: red, do not pitch replacement. Whether you sell a migration or sell a sidecar depends almost entirely on whether someone has already costed the move.
▸ Goliath Bank core system
Your turn — change one number
Result 2.00
Yellow. Heavy. Position as a sidecar first; earn escape velocity.
Book's benchmark: 🟢 < 1 (movable) · 🟡 1–5 · 🔴 ≥ 5 (do NOT pitch replacement).
⌁ ask what this number means for me
Entropy Tax E_tax · Ch 2Maintenance × e^(λt). The status quo is never free — read the curve, not a point.
Worked example — A 2014 batch settlement job
A payments team spends $400K a year keeping it alive. Every year it needs a little more: more patches, more people who know the workaround, more hours in the release window. Call the decay 0.2 and look three years out.
It came out at $729K/yr by year three — 1.8× today's bill. Bending.
The CFO did not approve a $500K project. He approved not paying an extra $329K a year to stand still. Same money, opposite framing — and the second one is arithmetic he can check.
Your turn — change one number
Result $729K/yr
Yellow. Curve is bending (1.8×). Run the Financial Autopsy.
Book's benchmark: read the curve, not a point. 🟢 flat · 🟡 bending · 🔴 hockey stick. (Numeric, as a multiple of base Maintenance: 🟢 < 1.5× · 🟡 1.5–3× · 🔴 > 3×.)
⌁ ask what this number means for me
Legacy Friction Coefficient μ_leg · Ch 2Years since last update ÷ pages of documentation. Obscure + terrifying = nobody will touch it.
Worked example — A claims-routing service nobody touches
Last meaningfully changed in 2016. Documented by a 40-page wiki page written by someone who left in 2019.
It came out at 0.23. Green — low friction, because the docs still cover it.
Now audit the wiki and find that 32 of those pages describe screens that no longer exist. Eight real pages: 1.1, mid friction — and that is your opening, not your problem. High friction means you get to be the only person who understands it.
Your turn — change one number
Result 0.23
Green. Low friction. Documented, touchable, boring — in the good way.
Book's benchmark: 🟢 < 0.5 (low) · 🟡 0.5–2 (mid) · 🔴 > 2 (high — obscure + terrifying = nobody will touch it).
⌁ ask what this number means for me
Technical Debt Compound Rate D_comp · Ch 2Bugs found ÷ bugs fixed. Above 1.0 the team is underwater.
Worked example — A six-person platform team's tracker
About forty new bugs arrive every week. They close about thirty. Nobody is lazy; the backlog just grows by ten every Friday.
It came out at 1.33. Yellow — ten more every week than they can close.
Do not pitch this team a migration. They are drowning, and a blueprint is not a flotation device. Pitch one thing that removes a whole class of bug, get found under fixed, and talk about the blueprint next quarter.
Your turn — change one number
Result 1.33
Yellow. Treading water. One bad sprint from sinking.
Book's benchmark: 🟢 < 1.0 · 🟡 1.0–1.5 · 🔴 > 1.5 (the team is underwater).
⌁ ask what this number means for me
Consensus Paralysis Factor F_cp · Ch 2Communication paths in a decision group — n(n−1)/2. Why big rooms can't decide.
Worked example — The weekly release-planning meeting
Nine people, because everyone who might object was invited. The decision has now slipped four weeks running.
It came out at 36 communication paths. Red — canon turns red at seven people.
They cut the deciding group to three — the engineer, the product owner, and the one VP who can actually say yes — and sent everyone else the notes. Three paths. The decision that had slipped four weeks was made the next day.
Your turn — change one number
Result 36paths
Red. Paralyzed. Committees are graveyards — shrink the deciding group or nothing ships.
Book's benchmark: 🟢 ≤ 3 (n≤3) · 🟡 6–15 (n 4–6) · 🔴 ≥ 21 (n ≥ 7).
⌁ ask what this number means for me From the module
ZERO tries the front door — 47 forms, PRISM auto-rejects her. BISHOP sees the rejection queue, recognizes the MirrorMatch resignation, slips her a back-channel frequency. First contact. Vitamin / Painkiller / Tourniquet.
Re-read The Physics of Stagnation →