Software is only useful in use

In every project, a moment comes when the roadmap starts to feel more important than delivery. A clean schedule, a wide feature set, a launch in six weeks. It feels comfortable.

It’s the opposite of comfortable. Software that isn’t in someone’s hands within weeks often never ends up in anyone’s hands at all.

Two weeks, not two months

I work in iterations of weeks, not months. Not out of principle-stubbornness, but because end-users only say something useful once they have something in front of them.

• The first delivery is usable, not complete.
• It gets refined based on real feedback.
• What no one uses gets cut.

Ten years of building has taught me: a feature no one has used has no claim to more hours either. Better to discover in two weeks that something doesn’t work than to find out after three months.

Roadmaps are internal

Roadmaps are a handy instrument for me as the builder — not a promise to the end user. The work only counts when someone actually opens the site, app or tool and does what it was meant to do.

No milestones left on the shelf.

That is what being used means.