SS*: Going live with digital product FAST

SS*: Starting small — a series of posts bout engineering and product management, so feel free to comment, ask questions and share opinions :)

We all do hear and chase a concept that we want to go live with our digital products FAST. MVP, AGILE, SCRUM, SAFE, SHAPE UP, we need stuff done FAST.

But why? Well, obvious! Or is it…? If it is SO obvious, why most of us are not going that FAST?

My humble experience and some bunch of reading made me realize the following:

• Perfectionism, very much loved by engineers and product managers. We cant have not production ready code! We cant disappoint our clients either!
• There is never to little research just to be sure! Is this the best option? Will it stick to the market? Should I really invest my money and / or time into this! I need to be sure!
• Strategic quarter / half year / year / decade plans dictates that we need to build on solid ground, and deliver only the best! We will build a sea ship for a pond, one day it will (maybe) sail in the ocean. Perfectly
• Best practices says that I should do X things before launch, so it would definitely stick! I have to stick with release flow, product management workflows to align everything to everyone!

And so on… On an on actually. I should even post some kind of illustration of over engineering here, yet — for a sake of proving something, I will not :)

This article will not be perfect, and now I will not summarize the books I’ve read, or projects I delivered just to impress You and improve reading times of all this..

I will start small, because:

• I have super short coffee break to write all this. As you always have a limited time and money budget for Your digital product development
• I am not afraid to fail. I’ve learned to fail, and I will fail small time anyways — lost coffee break? Yet, I will learn :) No comments will mean that I’ll go ahead and write on something else next coffee break. And will maybe add one more image to the article. I’ll be still on the budget, with more observations, and more conscious next idea and decision.
• I have a chance of 30% for this article to stick to someone. As you do with your product (feature) idea. So I’m better of spending 1 hour for 10 so/so articles than 1 hour for 1 good one which, statistically speaking, is doomed. How bout You?
• I cant, in no way, to control who reads this. With what experience, on what mood, time of a day, and noise level behind ones back. I would gladly invest to think otherwise (like on some targeted adds, promotions) but still, I cant be sure on formulations of a sentences and words I use would stick or any other human aspect, that tech cant control. Basically - little or no actual control

I think this concept has a lot of names shapes and sizes(80/20, MVP), yet, a lot of structures that inflates overall complexity every single time, and gets us back to good old basic fears and ways of doing things slow.

I will start small, since coffee break is at the end. Will You help me? Will You help Your self?

Let me know on the comments bellow :)