Every organisation has friction in its delivery. Most of it is invisible on a sprint board: Approval processes that require more sign-offs than the decision actually warrants. Dependencies on teams or systems that operate at a different pace to the work that needs them. Requirements that arrive incomplete and require multiple clarification cycles before work can start. Technical debt that means every new piece of work touches more of the system than it should. Context switching that prevents deep work from happening in sustainable rhythms. Each one individually feels like a minor cost. Collectively, they can cut the effective throughput of a high-capability team by fifty percent — while the team feels like they're working at full speed. Because they are. The work just isn't reaching the business at the rate it should. This is why adding more engineers often doesn't fix it. More people in a high-friction environment just means more people experiencing the friction. What changes the velocity is identifying and systematically removing the specific structural conditions that are converting effort into delay instead of output.