Another Manifesto: The Cult of Done
My insanely talented (and insanely geeky) friend Bre Pettis, along with Kio Stark, drafted 12 bullet points that might help explain to you how, and more importantly why, I’m always working on something (and in most cases, more than one thing).
From Bre’s blog:
- There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
- Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
- There is no editing stage.
- Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
- Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
- The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
- Once you’re done you can throw it away.
- Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
- People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
- Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
- Destruction is a variant of done.
- If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
- Done is the engine of more.
This is “Agile” for everybody else. What are you getting done?
Good stagnation busters, these.
Good stagnation busters, these.
While i think that some of these points are good ideas, after having thought about this post for a few days, i am troubled by the fact that it seems to encourage a “git it done any way you can, who cares about bugs / compatibility / standards compliances, we gotta get it done in less than a week / get it to market this quarter” attitude that, i feel, has contributed to the sorry state of information technology today.
From the linked article:
This is what “laugh at perfection” results in – systems that suck down more and more of our time, systems that are incompatible, systems riddled with bugs that we accept as inevitable, systems that don't protect our identities, and exponentially-increasing complexity for the sake of some vague notion of “progress”, which really boils down to greed for flash-bang features and mining the cash cow.
yes, perfection is impossible, but we are not even trying anymore.
Jan,
You make a really good point about quality control. The notion of “just fucking ship“, for me, is more about staying motivated and avoiding 90% syndrome than intentionally cranking out a mediocre product for the sake of a fast buck.
The attitude is key. To me, the “Cult of Done” isn't about rushed, poorly produced product. It's about setting better goals, shorter iterations that are capable of producing carefully crafted results. In this case, “done” means, “that part was done, now onto the next part”. Too many people set goals that are way too far off and unattainable no matter their attention to quality and detail, and never give themselves a chance to “feel done” and iterate on their work. That “feeling of done” is critical for self motivation. Without it, you're fast tracking to burnout.
There are three variations on working with ideas, in my opinion:
1) the idea never gets to done, so it's never seen in the first place. Dead before it lives.
2) the idea gets to done, but done isn't complete (features or quality), and never gets iterated on again. Dead before long.
3) the idea gets to done, and new milestones are set for iteration immediately. This is the product that will live, so long as new milestones keep being set and the work product keeps getting improved
While i think that some of these points are good ideas, after having thought about this post for a few days, i am troubled by the fact that it seems to encourage a “git it done any way you can, who cares about bugs / compatibility / standards compliances, we gotta get it done in less than a week / get it to market this quarter” attitude that, i feel, has contributed to the sorry state of information technology today.
From the linked article:
This is what “laugh at perfection” results in – systems that suck down more and more of our time, systems that are incompatible, systems riddled with bugs that we accept as inevitable, systems that don't protect our identities, and exponentially-increasing complexity for the sake of some vague notion of “progress”, which really boils down to greed for flash-bang features and mining the cash cow.
yes, perfection is impossible, but we are not even trying anymore.
Jan,
You make a really good point about quality control. The notion of “just fucking ship“, for me, is more about staying motivated and avoiding 90% syndrome than intentionally cranking out a mediocre product for the sake of a fast buck.
The attitude is key. To me, the “Cult of Done” isn't about rushed, poorly produced product. It's about setting better goals, shorter iterations that are capable of producing carefully crafted results. In this case, “done” means, “that part was done, now onto the next part”. Too many people set goals that are way too far off and unattainable no matter their attention to quality and detail, and never give themselves a chance to “feel done” and iterate on their work. That “feeling of done” is critical for self motivation. Without it, you're fast tracking to burnout.
There are three variations on working with ideas, in my opinion:
1) the idea never gets to done, so it's never seen in the first place. Dead before it lives.
2) the idea gets to done, but done isn't complete (features or quality), and never gets iterated on again. Dead before long.
3) the idea gets to done, and new milestones are set for iteration immediately. This is the product that will live, so long as new milestones keep being set and the work product keeps getting improved
yeah, i think my statement was p'haps a bit too strong. nothing inherently wrong with those 12 points (i do disagree with / feel uncomfortable with a couple), but i see that these points can either be used to get you to where you need to go, or can be used (misused, really) as an excuse for poor quality.
iow, iterations don't mean anything if testing is seen as a step-child of product development and QA people are paid half of what developer are, or QA is outsourced to a body shop / sweat shop.
I completely agree the fact that QA is underutilized, as related to iterative process or not.
The points can certainly be abused if the caveat of “give a crap about the quality of what you're producing” isn't included. They're also very abruptly constructed in tone and speak in absolutes, which I don't typically subscribe to. It also helps to knkow Bre, who I have never seen produce anything below top-notch quality, since the context of my appreciation included that.
Here's the bottom line: if people are looking for excuses to produce shoddy work, they'll find them. And i think there are far better excuses for doing a crappy job than the 12 points in this manifesto
Also, QA specific: one of the things I miss from working at a really good agency is a really good QA team. One who ISNT underpaid or outsourced. That was a beautiful process. Rare, indeed.
As indies, we're responsible for our own QA, and that's hard.
One of the community aspects of IndyHall that I love is the fact that any time we want, we can check each others' work. If I were to show you something and you said “I know you can do better than that” as a piece of constructive criticism, it wouldn't be the first time I heard that around here! As a result, everyone's work quality has a chance to improve, which is rare in an independent environment.
yeah, i think my statement was p'haps a bit too strong. nothing inherently wrong with those 12 points (i do disagree with / feel uncomfortable with a couple), but i see that these points can either be used to get you to where you need to go, or can be used (misused, really) as an excuse for poor quality.
iow, iterations don't mean anything if testing is seen as a step-child of product development and QA people are paid half of what developer are, or QA is outsourced to a body shop / sweat shop.
yeah, i think my statement was p'haps a bit too strong. nothing inherently wrong with those 12 points (i do disagree with / feel uncomfortable with a couple), but i see that these points can either be used to get you to where you need to go, or can be used (misused, really) as an excuse for poor quality.
iow, iterations don't mean anything if testing is seen as a step-child of product development and QA people are paid half of what developer are, or QA is outsourced to a body shop / sweat shop.
I completely agree the fact that QA is underutilized, as related to iterative process or not.
The points can certainly be abused if the caveat of “give a crap about the quality of what you're producing” isn't included. They're also very abruptly constructed in tone and speak in absolutes, which I don't typically subscribe to. It also helps to knkow Bre, who I have never seen produce anything below top-notch quality, since the context of my appreciation included that.
Here's the bottom line: if people are looking for excuses to produce shoddy work, they'll find them. And i think there are far better excuses for doing a crappy job than the 12 points in this manifesto
I completely agree the fact that QA is underutilized, as related to iterative process or not.
The points can certainly be abused if the caveat of “give a crap about the quality of what you're producing” isn't included. They're also very abruptly constructed in tone and speak in absolutes, which I don't typically subscribe to. It also helps to knkow Bre, who I have never seen produce anything below top-notch quality, since the context of my appreciation included that.
Here's the bottom line: if people are looking for excuses to produce shoddy work, they'll find them. And i think there are far better excuses for doing a crappy job than the 12 points in this manifesto
Also, QA specific: one of the things I miss from working at a really good agency is a really good QA team. One who ISNT underpaid or outsourced. That was a beautiful process. Rare, indeed.
As indies, we're responsible for our own QA, and that's hard.
One of the community aspects of IndyHall that I love is the fact that any time we want, we can check each others' work. If I were to show you something and you said “I know you can do better than that” as a piece of constructive criticism, it wouldn't be the first time I heard that around here! As a result, everyone's work quality has a chance to improve, which is rare in an independent environment.
Also, QA specific: one of the things I miss from working at a really good agency is a really good QA team. One who ISNT underpaid or outsourced. That was a beautiful process. Rare, indeed.
As indies, we're responsible for our own QA, and that's hard.
One of the community aspects of IndyHall that I love is the fact that any time we want, we can check each others' work. If I were to show you something and you said “I know you can do better than that” as a piece of constructive criticism, it wouldn't be the first time I heard that around here! As a result, everyone's work quality has a chance to improve, which is rare in an independent environment.