Iterations, Increments & Releases
Big Ideas Take Big Time
Sometimes we have amazing ideas that we are willing to invest a lot of time & energy into without seeing the completed product. We all know that some of our greatest ideas will take some time to organize, to execute on day in & day out, to put the finishing nuts & bolts into, to buff out imperfections that came about along the way, and to put on the showroom floor as maybe the pinnacle representation of our work, our time, our blood, sweat and tears.
The inherent problem with big ideas and big time is that the time between ideation to release may be long. Uncomfortably long, for some.
This is a familiar problem to an innovative product-building organization, both for realizing idea development as well as releasing value.
Trade The Long Wait For Releasable Value
Releasing something that provides value to the org and to the client is the goal here. The org can make a trade where the wait for the idealized product is over, in exchange for value-driving content out the door.
To the idealists in the org, this might be painful.
Releasing an incomplete product without all the bells and whistles, to the futuristic, forward thinking, all-or-nothing type folks, can feel disempowered and let down.
To the pragmatists this might feel like great news.
Get something out there. Get some feedback from users.
To the process gatekeepers who have been operating in a primarily idea-driven org to incremental releasing, this can feel startling.
An org that has nurtured its processes to maintain a far-off ideal state will not be able to maintain the same processes in an incremental transition.
To the influence leaders this might feel like both an exciting moment but also a tricky detail to navigate.
Previously elusive timelines now might begin to have more clarity to them, and may become longer than expected. This can be unsettling. On the other hand, excitement can come from having something out in the market to get real client interaction with.
Release The First Increment
"Iteration can be uncomfortable, even painful. If you're doing iteration correctly, it should be." - (The Gitlab Handbook, on Iteration)
Stop waiting for the next feature integration to be done. Ship it.
The product is incomplete. Ship it.
The product only partially does everything that it will do. Ship it.
The first increment is the most important increment for the team where strong idealist trailblazers are leading the pack. The first increment is worth celebrating as the tangible representation of ideas already executed providing value. The first increment says to the team and the client that the product is valuable as it is, and more features and functionalities are on the way.
Include Processes to Protect The Increment
Protect Team Focus
One trait of a team working on incremental feature development seems to be extreme focus on the items at hand. This has extreme benefits, that in a short time the team can build comprehensive functionality for the product across a wide stack of technologies.
The "basement" or shortfall of a team with focus at this intensity can be that negative application side-effects can get introduced without intention and without notice.
Details & Processes can be introduced to protect the team's focus, catch unintended side-effects, and protect the product from these things.
End-To-End Tests can be a great automation to add to the mix.
These can test real-world usability expectations every time a new feature is delivered into the app. Engineers both green and seasoned will benefit from automation catching the forgotten side-effects of their valuable focus.
Having Humans Test the Increment can be great for less technical detail validation.
Once the ideas, designs, and implementation are agreed upon and completed to the best of the abilities and understandings of the team, people who are more client-like may ask "common sense" questions that got lost in the sauce.