Comment by mlinsey
21 hours ago
"With one big caveat: you need a very clear set of requirements"
Most new product launches are an exercise in figuring out what the product requirements should be through trial and error (really: through ongoing dialogue with your users). Even mature products can have requirements change over time as the market changes.
I think internalizing this reality is why most senior engineers who work in domains that touch the messy real world will reflexively push back against perfectionism.
> Most new product launches are an exercise in figuring out what the product requirements should be through trial and error
Sure, but these have to be well-defined trials. In other words, yes, you will test several hypotheses, but your hypotheses have to be hypotheses, not hand waving.
But this article allows framing this decision in a nice way. It's not a push back against over engineering, it's deliberate trade-off for speed by lowering quality, because quality is relative to the targeted outcome, which is yet fuzzy.