Make Progress...Not Perfection
Greg Simmons
Product Leader | Passionate Geek | Public Speaker | Consultant | History Buff | Lifelong Learner ??
When developing new products or services, it is so easy to fall into the trap of wanting to deliver the perfect solution for our customers. There's a problem with kind of thinking. Perfection doesn't exist. As long as people are involved in any process, perfection is an illusion. Personal experience and bias lead to preconceived ideas about what that perfect product or service should be. Even the interpretation of seemingly objective data can vary among individuals. Does that mean the whole Product Development and Management process is hopeless? Not at all! We need to shift our focus.
Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence. - Vince Lombardi
Vince Lombardi was right. Perfection is NOT attainable. No matter how hard we work, analyze, refine and plan there will be errors. There will be improvements yet to be made. Just ask any athlete.
The solution?
Progress > Perfection
Strive for Progress over Perfection. This mindset is embodied in the Agile method.
Agile software development refers to a group of software development methodologies based on iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams. - cPrime
The goal should be iterative development. Put another way - progress. For example:
- A first generation iPhone would be unacceptable to smartphone users today.
- Windows 10 is far different from Windows 3.1.
- Cars today demonstrate reliability and options unimaginable in the early part of the 20th century.
Current generation products would not exist in their current form without the successes and failures - (Ford Pinto, Windows Vista, and New Coke anyone?) - of previous iterations.
Does that mean we deliver inferior products in the push to get version 1 out the door? Not at all! While the first iPhone from 2007 is no competitor to the current generation, Apple defined what the current idea of a smart phone should be with that first version. Samsung and others quickly followed with similar products.
What Apple did do was to define clearly the scope of what a successful version 1 would be. While other companies played catch up, Apple quickly began working on version 2. If Apple tried to deliver a perfect product in version 1, the product would never have launched.
Product Management focus needs to shift from delivering a final product to delivering the current generation of a product.
Progress > Perfection
Product Leader | Passionate Geek | Public Speaker | Consultant | History Buff | Lifelong Learner ??
9 年Absolutely Mike. In the example I gave, Apple scoped and defined what a successful Version 1 looked like. Unfortunately, too many product / service rollouts get held up with scope creep. You have to draw the line somewhere at what Version 1 will include and won't include. Tough sometimes, but necessary.
Delivery Director at Terazo
9 年Certainly. But I think you'd agree that there's a certain bar that should be established as a starting point. It doesn't have to be (and can never be) perfect out of the gate, but it must pass the muster...
Founder & CEO
9 年So true. Good post Greg Simmons