Rework

Once you get over the arrogant bullsh#t of “they say do it this way, we didn’t”, “they say do that, we did the opposite” this is a book you simply cannot ignore. If you are a online company selling or launching an application every principle and issue raised is a valuable lesson to take note of.

We all know the success story of 37signals and they share their success within the pages of this book. In fact, a particular sub-section advises you to share your success with your customers and competitors.

Below are some of the principles 37signals put forward that I believe we all should be adopting no matter what our product is.

A kick ass half is better than a assed half whole
Due to time constraints, stretched resources and the pressures of cramming every little request into a deadline only weeks before a launch often results in a product that is simply compiled of numerous features, most of which do not fully work.

Analysing exactly what features are required and cutting features that are not vitally important will help you to create a better product. Its much better to have a kick ass half than a assed half whole. Besides, once you do cut features from the product, overtime you’ll realise that the feature wasn’t as important as you first thought and if it is important you will have more time to refine it and get it right.

Launch Now
Is your product ever really finished? There will always be the ‘last 10%’ of things that need to be done. Just because you have a list of tiny changes or slight tweaks to make it render better in IE does not mean your product isn’t finished. Your product is probably safe enough to release a lot sooner than you are comfortable with. Its a good idea to sepearate the neccessities from the luxuries. Once the necessities are finished you can launch and worry about the luxuries later. Trying to get all the luxuries finished for the deadline will often result in either the deadline being missed or a series of quick win coding that you would be embarrassed about if customers inspect your code. So launch now.

Estimates Suck
Humans are simply bad at estimating. How often do you set aside half hour to tidy the loft and it takes you three. How many times do you pop to the supermarket for ‘quick shop’ and it ends up being a two hour long ‘big shop’? When estimating for our project nothing changes. We judge our estimate on best case scenario and do not account for other important tasks that may get in the way.

Break the project down into small piece by piece sections and your estimates will become more accurate. They still wont be accurate, however they will be much closer than guessing for the entire project. Look at Wembley Stadium. The last figures issued highlighted that the project was at least £300m and two years overdue.

I could continue to mention more points from this book as so many are valuable and appropriate if you’re launching a product. If you have read this book I’m sure you will agree you simply cant ignore it. If you have not read the book you can buy it here.