P50 goals, the shift to exploration, & managing in spite of volatility

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Software Design: Tidy First?

Kent Beck shares a personal story from his early days at Facebook where accomplishing only half his goals earned him an 'exceeds expectations' review. He uses this to explain the 3X framework (Explore/Expand/Extract) and the concept of P50 goals — setting targets where achieving roughly 50% is considered on-track. In exploratory phases, completing all goals signals either sandbagging or a failure to learn. Beck argues that the software industry has shifted from Extract (stable, dependency-heavy, KPI-driven) to Explore mode, requiring a fundamental rethink of how goals, dependencies, and performance are managed.

Don't Accomplish Everything