"Organizations adapt faster to pressure than to insight.
The useful word in this quote is organizations. In a release that is halfway out and already being noticed, it points to the part of the decision that will not be solved by effort or optimism. That is where good teams get surprised.
In a release that is halfway out and already being noticed, good engineers will do what the system rewards. You see it in a shortcut that becomes the new operating mode, and you can’t fix it with reminders. Make the signal observable, not philosophical, so you can act without debating intentions.
Geoffrey Vickers is a reminder to keep it concrete. Name the assumption and the observable signal that would invalidate it. Make it specific enough that a peer can disagree.