Do the Right Things Right and Fast

It's fascinating how sometimes some relatively simple picture can contain so much relevant information. I have been lately involved in strategy renewal and while doing that I saw a picture that I fell in love with.

My job is very much concentrated around improving software development processes. In essence it's about doing the things right. But many times I have thought that it doesn't really matter if you do things right if they are not the right things. You might write the most beautiful and simple code ever, but it makes no difference if no one cares about it. I feel this is often a problem with some open source projects. Okay, there might be open source with crappy code quality too, but usually the quality is on a really nice level.

Another case are commercial projects with tight deadlines. In those cases it's easily right things (someone, usually customer, is really interested about the results), but just fast. When coders are stretched, it is the quality that suffers.

By concentrating on the software production methods (Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery) and good engineering practices (craftsmanship), one can only reach adequate results. One dimension is still missing.

Maybe the best non-perfect position to be is when you have a good portfolio (you are doing the right things) and you concentrate on your code quality (doing the things right). At this point you can still miss valuable market windows, but it can still work. Then you can start investing in the production methods and speed things up until you hit the sweet spot in the intersection of all the three dimensions.

I thing this later triplet of circles depicts the situation at practical level. When your Product Management is working properly, your Developers are applying good engineering practices and your development infrastructure is in order, you can expect awesome results. I'm not saying it's easy to achieve but definitely worth a try.