Writing the design doc before writing the program. I was "gently forced" into that at a past job. When I write a design doc, I think about a problem in terms of

Writing the design doc before writing the program. I was "gently forced" into that at a past job. When I write a design doc, I think about a problem in terms of the problem, rather than the (arbitrarily) chosen tech stack. As a result, the solution is (in)validated quicker, the program is simpler, better fitting the problem and significantly easier to understand, and the programming phase converges to a reliable solution much faster.