Getting real in development

Editor's Notes

• #3: Less mass, less software, less features, less paperwork, less of everything that’s not essential. Interfaces - the real screens that people are going to use. The benefits of Getting Real Getting Real delivers better results because it forces you to deal with the actual problems you’re trying to solve instead of your ideas about those problems. It forces you to deal with reality.
• #4: Conventional wisdom says that to beat your competitors you need to one-up them. If they have four features, you need five (or 15, or 25). Less features Less options/preferences Less people and corporate structure Less meetings and abstractions Less promises The key here is understanding that you’re not alone. If you’re having this problem, it’s likely hundreds of thousands of others are in the same boat. There’s your market. Wasn’t that easy? So do what you can with the cash on hand. Think hard and determine what’s really essential and what you can do without. Run on limited resources and you’ll be forced to reckon with constraints earlier and more intensely. And that’s a good thing. Constraints drive innovation. There’s a myth that goes like this: we can launch on time, on budget, and on scope. It almost never happens and when it does quality often suffers.
• #5: Mass is increased by... Long term contracts Excess staff Permanent decisions Meetings about other meetings Thick process Inventory (physical or mental) Hardware, software, technology lock-ins Proprietary data formats The past ruling the future Long-term roadmaps Office politics Mass is reduced by... Just-in-time thinking Multi-tasking team members Embracing constraints, not trying to lift them Less software, less code Less features Small team size Simplicity Pared-down interfaces Open-source products Open data formats An open culture that makes it easy to admit mistakes Change is your best friend. The more expensive it is to make a change, the less likely you’ll make it. And if your competitors can change faster than you, you’re at a huge disadvantage. There’s never enough to go around. Not enough time. Not enough money. Not enough people. That’s a good thing.
• #6: Before you start designing or coding anything you need to know the purpose of your product – the vision. Think big. Why does it exist? What makes it different than other similar products? There’s plenty of time to be a perfectionist. Just do it later. Do you really need 12 top-of-the-line servers now if you can run on two for a year? You don’t have a scaling problem yet
• #7: Stick to what’s truly essential. Good ideas can be tabled. Start off with a lean, smart app and let it gain traction. Then you can start to add to the solid foundation you’ve built. Our favorite answer to the “why didn’t you do this or why didn’t you do that?” question is always: “Because it just doesn’t matter.” The secret to building half a product instead of a half-ass product is saying no. For every new feature you need to... 1. Say no. 2. Force the feature to prove its value. 3. If “no” again, end here. If “yes,” continue... 4. Sketch the screen(s)/ui. 5. Design the screen(s)/ui. 6. Code it. 7-15. Test, tweak, test, tweak, test, tweak, test, tweak... 16. Check to see if help text needs to be modified. 17. Update the product tour (if necessary). 18. Update the marketing copy (if necessary). 19. Update the terms of service (if necessary). 20. Check to see if any promises were broken. 21. Check to see if pricing structure is affected. 22. Launch. 23. Hold breath. Bottom line: Build products and offer services you can manage. It’s easy to make promises. It’s much harder to keep them. Make sure whatever it is that you’re doing is something you can actually sustain – organizationally, strategically, and financially. Build software for general concepts and encourage people to create their own solutions
• #8: It’s ok to do less, skip details, and take shortcuts in your process if it’ll lead to running software faster. Once you’re there, you’ll be rewarded with a significantly more accurate perspective on how to proceed. For customers, preference screens with an endless amount of options are a headache. Accept that decisions are temporary. Accept that mistakes will happen and realize it’s no big deal as long as you can correct them quickly. Execute, build momentum, and move on. There’s no substitute for real people using your app in real ways. Get real data. Get real feedback. Then improve based on that info. Further, don’t have a release version and a beta version.
• #9: Epicenter design flips that process and allows you to focus on what really matters on day one. Essentials first, extras second. The regular state is a no-brainer. This is the screen where you’ll spend most of your time. But don’t forget to invest time on the other states too (see the following essays for more on this).
• #10: Less software means you put away the crystal ball. Instead of trying to predict future problems, you deal only with the problems of today. Why? Fears you have about tomorrow often never come to fruition. Don’t bog yourself down trying to solve these phantom issues. Less software is easier to manage. Less software reduces your codebase and that means less maintenance busywork (and a happier staff). Less software lowers your cost of change so you can adapt quickly. You can change your mind without having to change boatloads of code. Less software results in fewer bugs. Less software means less support. Hack together some bad code that’s functional but still a bit hairy and you’re building up debt. Throw together a design that’s good enough but not really good and you’ve done it again. It’s ok to do this from time to time. In fact, it’s often a needed technique that helps you do the whole Get-Real-asapthing. But you still need to recognize it as debt and pay it off at some point by cleaning up the hairy code or redesigning that so-so page.
• #11: Think of your product as a person. What type of person do you want it to be? Polite? Stern? Forgiving? Strict? Funny? Deadpan? Serious? Loose? Do you want to come off as paranoid or trusting? As a know-it-all? Or modest and likable?
• #12: Look at Flickr. It began as a multiplayer online game called The Game Neverending. Its creators soon realized the photo-sharing aspect of the game was a more plausible product than the game itself (which was eventually shelved). Be willing to admit mistakes and change course.