Bridging the Gap Between Business and Development: Understanding IT Production Capacity and Its Limits

After years of working in the IT industry, the author observes a common gap between business personnel and system developers that hinders mutual understanding, especially in the fintech sector.

Typical business questions:

Why does development take so long? Can we add people to meet a one‑month deadline?

Why maintain an online system if it already works?

Why do some large changes happen quickly while small ones take ages?

Is the claim that "the system can do anything" realistic?

Typical developer questions:

Why do requirements keep changing?

Why can’t we find a single perfect product/model to develop once?

Why is system optimization rarely valued by business?

The author explains that the mismatch stems from differing cognitive domains and time horizons. IT output has an inherent short‑term upper limit—similar to a painting half‑finished that cannot be easily continued by another artist—and a lower limit that requires continuous investment even without new features (maintenance, security patches, third‑party upgrades, scaling, etc.).

Because business systems mirror real‑world processes, their complexity drives the complexity of the IT system; rapid business changes lead to rapid IT changes, and vice versa.

To raise the IT output ceiling, the author suggests several measures:

Increase staff (helps medium‑ to long‑term capacity, not immediate speed).

Allocate more time (limited by diminishing returns).

Optimize workflows (e.g., tighter hand‑off between development and testing).

Improve architecture (reuse platforms, adopt middle‑platform solutions).

Prioritize and phase demands based on ROI and project importance.

To lower the IT maintenance floor, the author recommends:

System decommissioning when a product is no longer viable.

Continuous system optimization and upgrades.

In conclusion, genuine mutual understanding and close collaboration between business and technical teams are essential; while the fundamental tension between demand volatility and IT capacity cannot be eliminated, it can be mitigated through the above strategies.