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The point that seems to completely elude 37signals is that not every industry operates the same way as web design and development. They've taken their very narr
by ccc3 17y ago
The point that seems to completely elude 37signals is that not every industry operates the same way as web design and development. They've taken their very narrow range of experience and told us that it applies to all projects in every industry (he cites Denver International Airport and the Big Dig in his post). This is such an outlandish notion that it becomes difficult to take them seriously at all.
As an example, I work as a design engineer in the R&D wing of an automotive supplier. If we were to just start building products on a hunch, without any market research or project planning, we could easily spend hundreds of thousands of dollars or more before we knew if we were headed in the right direction.
Ultimately planning is imperfect and comes at a cost (time and resources), but that needs to be compared to the cost of no planning at all. In the web app business the cost of trying a new idea may be next to nothing, so trial and error becomes the most expedient method. In my industry, we're aware that our plans are imperfect, but if they allow us to cut a few very expensive iterations out of the development process then they're worth it.
- tptacek 17y agoI don't think it "eludes" them so much as they simply don't care about the entrepreneurial needs of automotive suppliers.
- ccc3 17y agoI would have made the same assumption, except, as I mentioned, the two examples he gives are major construction projects. Since it was clear that the 37signals post was addressing all types of projects, I thought I'd give one example where the argument against planning doesn't hold.
- rubinelli 17y agoIsn't the automotive industry the MBA textbook example of how less planning, nimbler processes, continuous improvement, and faster innovation allowed underdogs to completely reverse the market?
- Tamerlin 17y agoNo, it's because they're constantly evaluating and updating their plan to adapt to obstacles rather than attempting to ignore obstacles and proceed obstinately along the same route that they had in mind at the beginning. If anything they're doing MORE planning, because whenever something gets in their way, they have to put some effort into coming up with a new plan or changing their existing plan.
- GHFigs 17y agoI'm appaled that the hate of 37signals around here runs so deep that people have actually downvoted the above comment.