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It was a hard lesson to learn, but "Weeks of programming can save you hours of planning" holds true in almost all cases.

by kuerbel 10y ago

kogepathic 10y ago
In my experience there is far too little respect for well written specifications. Most colleagues of mine and a few managers see them as a waste of time ("you're over thinking this", or "we'll figure it out later") yet somehow the projects with a specification always end up being done more or less on schedule. The thing about specifications is that you need to be open to changing them if you find it's not working out. Specifications are not synonymous with waterfall development, and it's harmful to treat and view them as such.
stymaar 10y ago
I totally agree with this statement, but here we're talking about 0.5 year of planning ! Planning is important, and cautiously thinking about your features before diving in can save you weeks later on. But spending 6 month in a tunnel, writing specs you'll spend at least a year to implement, is a huge risk : what if your users only use 30% of the features you designed, and lack a missing feature you didn't plan ? You could have figured it out way sooner have you built something earlier and released it. Also, your time to market is way slower and you don't risk losing years of work by missing a deadline … > Damn, now I need to move faster. My app must be ready by the time they close Wunderlist. I expected an eventual closure, but not that soon.
- corobo 10y ago
  > what if your users only use 30% of the features you designed Or worse, what if different segments of users only use 30% of different feature sets? See also: Evernote's 5% problem [1] [1] https://venturebeat.com/2016/01/05/evernotes-5-problem-offers-a-cautionary-lesson-to-tech-companies/ https://venturebeat.com/2016/01/05/evernotes-5-problem-offer...
- obsurveyor 10y ago
  > I totally agree with this statement, but here we're talking about 0.5 year of planning ! Yeah but that's not necessarily in man-years. Maybe he worked on it an hour or two a day. Now we're talking around two man-weeks of planning.
- roel_v 10y ago
  Well you'll only find out which 30% after building it, regardless of whether you have a spec or not. You can write a.spec for an mvp too.

It was a hard lesson to learn, but "Weeks of programming can save you hours of planning" holds true in almost all cases.

by kuerbel 10y ago

It was a hard lesson to learn, but "Weeks of programming can save you hours of planning" holds true in almost all cases.

kogepathic 10y ago

In my experience there is far too little respect for well written specifications. Most colleagues of mine and a few managers see them as a waste of time ("you're over thinking this", or "we'll figure it out later") yet somehow the projects with a specification always end up being done more or less on schedule. The thing about specifications is that you need to be open to changing them if you find it's not working out. Specifications are not synonymous with waterfall development, and it's harmful to treat and view them as such.

stymaar 10y ago

I totally agree with this statement, but here we're talking about 0.5 year of planning ! Planning is important, and cautiously thinking about your features before diving in can save you weeks later on. But spending 6 month in a tunnel, writing specs you'll spend at least a year to implement, is a huge risk : what if your users only use 30% of the features you designed, and lack a missing feature you didn't plan ? You could have figured it out way sooner have you built something earlier and released it. Also, your time to market is way slower and you don't risk losing years of work by missing a deadline … > Damn, now I need to move faster. My app must be ready by the time they close Wunderlist. I expected an eventual closure, but not that soon.

corobo 10y ago
> what if your users only use 30% of the features you designed Or worse, what if different segments of users only use 30% of different feature sets? See also: Evernote's 5% problem [1] [1] https://venturebeat.com/2016/01/05/evernotes-5-problem-offers-a-cautionary-lesson-to-tech-companies/ https://venturebeat.com/2016/01/05/evernotes-5-problem-offer...
obsurveyor 10y ago
> I totally agree with this statement, but here we're talking about 0.5 year of planning ! Yeah but that's not necessarily in man-years. Maybe he worked on it an hour or two a day. Now we're talking around two man-weeks of planning.
roel_v 10y ago
Well you'll only find out which 30% after building it, regardless of whether you have a spec or not. You can write a.spec for an mvp too.