iteration
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📈 Do schedule estimates get more or less confident over time?
There are two trajectories for schedule confidence. A schedule feels safest when it is nailed down up front, often built around what management wants to hear. Detailed Gantt charts add to that feeling. The modeling has value, but it rarely …
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🛩️ Why did the Wright Brothers succeed?
While Samuel Langley had $100,000 (equivalent to $3.5 million today) in funding, a team of engineers, and Washington connections, the Wrights were bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio with a fraction of those resources. Langley’s approach wa…
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🔄 The release circle
As previously discussed, a release is useful and quality. What counts as a release? One way to think about this is to view the release as a circle with two attributes: What (it contains) Who (it’s for) Initially, there is not much in the …
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🛠️ Do things that don't scale
From Paul Graham’s popular essay Do Things That Don’t Scale: Over-engaging with early users is not just a permissible technique for getting growth rolling. For most successful startups it’s a necessary part of the feedback loop that makes …
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🚀 Shipping faster leads to predictability
Shipping faster does not only mean getting to v1.0 faster (or even on time), but also many internal releases at a good rate. This is the only way to bring predictability into the development process.
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🤔 Isn't this just agile?
A reader responded to the last post with a comment: Isn’t “agile” a part of product thinking too? That doesn’t seem linear? This is a good question. Agile covers a lot of ground. The Agile Manifesto states: We are uncovering better ways …
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✂️ YAGNI
YAGNI - “You ain’t gonna need it!” If you don’t need it now, the chances you’ll need it in the future are small, or at least not the current implementation. Do the simplest thing that works now. Get feedback. Repeat. Iterations are the key …
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🚴 The power of movement
Rod’s thoughts on Riding a Bike are thought provoking. … A decision that might be bad. Yet, with it, you can steer. Just like riding a bike. If it’s standing with no movement, you can direct the handle and still be where you are. It’s when…
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🔄 AI and documentation - close the loop
Starting with good documentation is often a better way to use AI. However, you can also close the loop and have AI update the documentation when it is finished. It can fill in details, clean things up, etc. This closes the loop. Then repeat…
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♻️ How to iterate quickly on hardware
Today, we mostly think of iterating quickly on software, but it is becoming increasingly possible to also do this with hardware. A few ideas: Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are now relatively cheap and quick to manufacture in low quantities…
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♻️ How to define an iteration?
I’ve found it useful to define an iteration as a formal release (software that is packaged and users use, a PCB that you build, a prototype, a web app that you deploy, etc.). You don’t learn many things until you build and, more importantly…
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🔁 The importance of Git Commit/Push often
There are many forms of “shipping” your work as we recently discussed Shipping does not necessarily mean a product release, but rather releasing your work external to you. It can be a Git push, running tests in CI, a prototype, a document t…