Is the order of the constraints fixed?#
No. A common sequence runs from skills and tooling to context, validation, comprehension, judgment, intent and finally absorption, but the last two stations are extrapolation more than observation. Two missions in one organisation can be stuck on different constraints at once. Treat the sequence as a roadmap and you fund a bottleneck that has already moved.
What question should you keep asking?#
Where is this mission being held back right now? Ask it per mission and again after every improvement, because a successful fix is what makes the old answer wrong. The theory of constraints builds this into its five focusing steps, the last of which warns against inertia.
Wait time by stage answers the question fastest. DORA metrics cover commit to production; value stream mapping shows the waiting before commit and between functions. Counting agent runs or pull requests describes only the part that already got faster.