Ship More
I’m coming to believe that the single best fix you can make at a software company (especially one that is not performing to expectations) is to ship more.
By this I mean if you ship:
- once a year » then » ship twice a year
- twice a year » then » ship quarterly
- ship quarterly » then » ship monthly
- monthly » weekly
- weekly » daily
- multiple times a day. any time.
Why?
Put simply: the pace of shipment will drive the pace of learning. By learning I mean more opportunities to know whether you made the RIGHT decision.
It’s much better to know the valence of your decisions immediately.
Why wait.
Ship.
But what is sTraTeGY, tough guy?
Strategy, as a concept, is over-rated. Roger Martin, author of Playing to Win, has the simplest definition I’ve seen:
Strategy is a set of interrelated choices that positions the organization to win.
The key here is - strategy is a set of CHOICES. One versus another. Two equally viable options, and your strategy is the one you chose, instead of the other.
There is no simpler definition of the job of PM - what are the choices you are making, and why?
Post script
Fixing your ability to ship will force you to fix all the antecedents to shipping.
- How you conceptualize your roadmap.
- How you prioritize.
- How you define.
- How you test.
- How you document.
All of it. Fixing any one of those in a vacuum is super difficult and probably an over-investment. Mostly difficult because you don’t have real urgency, you have theoretical urgency. Which everyone knows is BS so they don’t move very fast.
Last updated: