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Sometimes urgency does matter; for example, when I ran Tinfoil, we got a lot of good press from being the first ones to release a public vulnerability checker f
by borski 2y ago
Sometimes urgency does matter; for example, when I ran Tinfoil, we got a lot of good press from being the first ones to release a public vulnerability checker for things like Heartbleed and so on, and it was a common reason we made sales. Getting those out within 12-24h was an intentional part of our model, because our competition would take a week, so it was trivial to make them look bad.
That said, it was extremely important for it to be correct, so we never cut corners. Best way to never make a sale is to tell someone they are patched when they’re not.
But speed can be a major factor sometimes. It just can’t be the only factor.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- SkyPuncher 2y agoI think your example is largely a good, valid reason to move fast. It’s a short lived, time sensitive event with clear outcomes and low ambiguity. The problem comes when you’re tackling large, ambiguous problems.
- borski 2y agoYes, agreed completely. “All hands on deck” can work really well for time sensitive things like this, but… it has to end relatively quickly, there must be a reprieve afterward (celebrate, take a day off, something), and it can’t happen all the time. If it happens all the time, nobody will pay any attention to it when it actually matters.
- jameshart 2y ago‘Slow is smooth, smooth is fast’ is a mantra about how to go fast. I’ve heard it in a number of contexts - racing drivers use it, so do woodworkers, so do musicians. None of the people using it are trying to tell you to not try to get things done fast. Speed is still the goal, it’s just about the approach you take in how you act moment to moment, while trying to get things done fast.
- borski 2y agoAmen. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
- dsr_ 2y agoDoing it once correctly is faster than doing it two (or more times) incorrectly. And when you try to go fast, it's usually by being incorrect and hoping that it won't matter this one time.
- dylan604 2y agoThis is something I've learned to really like after hearing it once, we never have time to do it right the first time, yet we always seem to find time to do it wrong multiple times.
- FireBeyond 2y agoMy old boss would say "No-one is impressed by how quickly you did something half-right."
- margalabargala 2y agoThis is true only in cases where the correct way to do something is known. In the face of unknowns, it is frequently more efficient in terms of time to iterate multiple times as a method of exploring the space to determine proper paths forwards. SpaceX would be one example of this.
- jameshart 2y agoBut you can iterate smoothly, systematically, making sure you learn from the data you gather through your experiments and making informed hypotheses… or you can iterate haphazardly, reacting with kneejerk guesses based on whatever went wrong last.
- borski 2y agoThis isn’t an argument against iterating. It’s about iterating with intent, rather than iterating just for the sake of iterating. Taking notes, making educated guesses and hypotheses, planning experiments that are adjusted based on what you learned in the prior ones, etc.? All examples of “slow and smooth.”