Why “Done Is Better Than Perfect”
🤔 is✔️ better than 👌
This week during a conversation, this subjected quote came up. That reminded me of another discussion just a few months back where my manager Z was asking for a delivery status during our weekly standup.
I was explaining that all the testing is yet to be completed, but his question was specific to “quality testing”?
Has “quality testing” been completed?
His focus was whether the necessary testing (not all, but what’s just needed!) is completed, NOT all testing. That’s an eye-opener.
The crux of the matter is it’s important to get things done, rather than delaying to make it perfect.
Perfect is an illusion. Nothing in this life is perfect. So, is software.
Transparency
The first thing to start with is confidence in yourself decide when/how you plan to reach the done state.
In scrum methodology, the first thing which is decided is the criteria of completion, the Definition of Done(DoD). The reason being once we agree on the open transparent completion checklist between the design team and product owner, it’s just a matter of execution to reach that state.
It’s important to decide that quality does not mean it is 100%. It should be just what is just needed to make the things “good” enough. Take special note to “good”, as the quality needs to reach that acceptable level, not best for the first iteration. Yes, better is the desired level, but (good is better) > (nothing).
Inspect
It’s a kind of procrastination to see that we wait for time and time and time to make something perfect. We inspect and try to find out small things to fix it however one thing which elapses by that is “time”.
We keep on trying to make it bug-free. We fear that people will point fix at the work. We want a picture-perfect to come out.
We miss the big picture.
One of our major delivery was 90% ready and we kept on trying to make the delivery perfect. The last 10% delayed the delivery for 6 weeks, and later we realise that 10% was not impactful at a bigger scheme of things. Great learning.
As 80/20 rule says, your 80% impactful work will come from 20% of your work. So, focus on that to getting the things done. The rest 20% can be taken up in operation/next iteration, but get the thing out of the door/or go live.
Perfectionism->Procrastination->Paralysis: Enough Said!
Adopt
Getting done is a better proposition as it allows to get feedback and make things better. Perfection is a mental satisfaction, which is kind of dichotomy syndrome. Still, you try to fix items, tweak a bit here and there. At some point, you need to take a call. Is this good enough? Is this a minimum delightful product(MDP)? If yes, then stop and get the thing out of the door.
“Move fast and break things.”
Not all feedback is not needed to be implemented. Maintain the second backlog to prioritise. Once you go “done” for the first iteration, only then you can go to another set of work which needs to be “done”. ]
Done makes the result.
Lastly, it’s important to have a fixed deadline. A sprint release date or completion date. An external projected date forces you to complete things done.
