The way I would put it is when you think about a REST API, for example, the tendency is to see the sum of the methods in it as 'what matters'. But shipping is

The way I would put it is when you think about a REST API, for example, the tendency is to see the sum of the methods in it as 'what matters'. But shipping is actually the sum of source control, the deployment story, development experience, compliance, quality gates, etc., and finally the methods themselves. What you don't want to do is hyper-focus on the last bit and think you're going to catch up on the rest as an afterthought.