# Why Product Development Bottlenecks Are Distributed and Context-Dependent

DevFeed: [Why Product Development Bottlenecks Are Distributed and Context-Dependent](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/tbm-427-the-bottleneck-strike-again-40053.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-427-the-bottleneck-strike-again>)

Author: John Cutler

Published: 2026-06-26T06:13:28Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [The Beautiful Mess](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/the-beautiful-mess.md>)

Topics: [Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/development.md>), [systems](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/systems.md>), [Loop Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/loop-engineering.md>), [Large Language Model](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/llm.md>)

Tags: [ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai.md>), [complexity](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/complexity.md>), [development](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/development.md>), [engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering.md>), [llm](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/llm.md>), [product-development](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/product-development.md>)

## AI overview

The article argues that product development is not a simple linear system with one bottleneck. It describes the work as a combination of sensing, deciding, learning, aligning, making, changing, supporting, and adapting, and says apparent bottlenecks are often temporary symptoms of interacting constraints. It acknowledges that LLMs can accelerate work in situations with abundant data, repetition, and situational awareness, but says this does not represent most cases.

## Source excerpt

My goodness.