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The adaptive approach: Products should ship as soon as they're ready for market, not according to some deadline. To ship sooner, they should be sliced into piec

The adaptive approach: Products should ship as soon as they're ready for market, not according to some deadline. To ship sooner, they should be sliced into pieces that have compelling individual value. Each piece is shipped when ready. And those pieces ("valuable increments") should be sliced into even more pieces that could be shipped sooner in case new business opportunities come along. I used to wholeheartedly agree with this view, but I've moderated my position considerably. What I've found is that, in practice, this encourages a mindset where a team (or even an entire company) delivers a lot of "half-assed" products or features. They make a minimally viable thing, ship it, and then move on to the next thing. They never come back to actually complete all the fit and finish work. A great example of this is the "Familiar Faces" feature of Nest security cameras. Nest security cameras have a feature where you can train them to recognize people in your household. Then, when they alert, instead of sending a generic alert, they tell you which person was seen. This is great, but Nest never actually finished the feature. There is no setting which tells the camera to only notify when there's an unfamiliar face. You can get no notifications at all. Or you can get a notification every time the camera notices activity. But there's no way to tell the camera, "Hey, let me know if you see a stranger," despite the camera having the ability to distinguish strangers from friends and family. Alphabet products, in general, suffer from this mindset. Another example is the new Suggested Audio feature of Android Auto [1]. I can tap on the icon and it'll bring up a random selection of podcasts from my (now defunct) Google Podcasts subscriptions. Is there any way to customize which podcasts appear? No. Is there any way to make the icon go away, because I use a different podcast app? No. It's just there, waiting for my finger to accidentally brush against it as I try to fast forward in PocketCasts. They made a minimally viable thing, shipped it, and moved on. I contrast this with Apple, or even Microsoft, where there seems to be a lot more focus on having products that are at least somewhat thought out from the perspective of the user, and not shipping until there is certain level of coherence. Alphabet, on the other hand, ships features as soon as they're ready, but doesn't seem to realize that on buttons are useless without their corresponding off buttons. [1]: https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/08/12/android-auto-starts-suggesting-music-news-and-podcasts-so-you-can-keep-your-focus-on-the-road/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/08/12/android-auto-starts...

AdamN 4y ago
Half-assed happens in both scenarios. If you have something shippable by the pre-ordained date or shortly thereafter, it ships. Whether you use an adaptive or predictive approach, the outcome is the same that further improvements may or may not happen. The advantage of the predictive approach is better driving of your workers with a deadline. The disadvantage is low morale over time and lower quality products under the hood. Rotating workers who come in fresh can mitigate this outcome but at a cost.
- jseban 4y ago
  > The disadvantage is low morale over time and lower quality products under the hood. Rotating workers who come in fresh can mitigate this outcome but at a cost. Hehe the modern Agile software sweatshop.
  - snidane 4y ago
    The modern Agile sweatshop is the one that manages by deadlines using timeboxed sprints. Not very agile by definition, yet the term stuck and people better find a new one.
jdlshore 4y ago
I agree that half-assery is a failure mode of the adaptive approach. I don't think it's an inherent problem with the approach, though, just a common mistake people make. You're supposed to split your product into pieces with compelling value. But often people misinterpret ideas such as "minimum viable product" as splitting the product into pieces with minimum value. And that's a mistake. (Minimum viable product, of course, not being about products at all, but about product-market fit and testing your ideas as soon as possible using low-fidelity experiments.) You can have a coherent user experience and still use an adaptive approach. I think Alphabet's failures have more to do with Alphabet's culture, particularly around rewards and promotions, and perhaps a disdain for non-engineering skills, rather than taking an adaptive approach.

AdamN 4y ago

Half-assed happens in both scenarios. If you have something shippable by the pre-ordained date or shortly thereafter, it ships. Whether you use an adaptive or predictive approach, the outcome is the same that further improvements may or may not happen. The advantage of the predictive approach is better driving of your workers with a deadline. The disadvantage is low morale over time and lower quality products under the hood. Rotating workers who come in fresh can mitigate this outcome but at a cost.

jseban 4y ago
> The disadvantage is low morale over time and lower quality products under the hood. Rotating workers who come in fresh can mitigate this outcome but at a cost. Hehe the modern Agile software sweatshop.
- snidane 4y ago
  The modern Agile sweatshop is the one that manages by deadlines using timeboxed sprints. Not very agile by definition, yet the term stuck and people better find a new one.

jdlshore 4y ago

I agree that half-assery is a failure mode of the adaptive approach. I don't think it's an inherent problem with the approach, though, just a common mistake people make. You're supposed to split your product into pieces with compelling value. But often people misinterpret ideas such as "minimum viable product" as splitting the product into pieces with minimum value. And that's a mistake. (Minimum viable product, of course, not being about products at all, but about product-market fit and testing your ideas as soon as possible using low-fidelity experiments.) You can have a coherent user experience and still use an adaptive approach. I think Alphabet's failures have more to do with Alphabet's culture, particularly around rewards and promotions, and perhaps a disdain for non-engineering skills, rather than taking an adaptive approach.