In a pressurized system that contains a liquid or gas, when the pressure is too high the system can rupture at its weakest point, causing a halt to operations, damage to the system and, possibly, leakage of dangerous materials into the environment. To protect against this, people install relief valves. The valves guard against excessive pressure and wrong-way flow. One type of relief valve vents into the atmosphere. It is used in applications that do not have hazardous liquids or gases. Another type can direct dangerous fluids to an alternate route, possibly collecting them in a reservoir of some sort, while protecting the system from damage.
In large organizations that use an "agile" process with a formal role similar to the Product Owner (PO) role defined in Scrum, a common problem is that the individuals assigned as POs are asked to work on more projects concurrently than they can handle with due diligence. Often, they are simply asked to add PO responsibilities to their existing workload. Thanks to the historical preoccupation with maximizing individual resource utilization in management "science," the PO’s existing workload usually does not provide any slack. In short, they are already too busy to begin with. Continue reading Relief valve for Product Owners