Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hidden costs of constantly shipping new things

mindtheproduct.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 62 posts

Re: Hidden costs of constantly shipping new things

#21

Post by montagg »

OliverGilan wrote: post #19
montagg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes, I am saying from a business perspective this worked. but I also think we got lucky. Around five years ago, a little before the high profile failure, we were starting to lose marketshare, and though we've been able to claw most of it back, I think it's far more due to missteps of our competitors than our own performance. Had we invested in more sustainable development earlier, I think we would have been abl…

Could there be a hybrid approach? Have teams that focus on being a first mover and shipping and then once there's a product on the market, you have a secondary team focusing on fixing the tech debt early while the other team continues to iterate

Early on, I don't think so. You need all hands on deck to move fast. But I do think you need to start establishing those Good Habits way earlier than they might be immediately valuable. For example, getting good at product and technical documentation before you have a huge company. It's so much harder to establish those habits with more people, so you want to have that built in so new folks join, and doing that stuff right is just part of the culture. A little effort today saves a ton of effort to establish those habits later. You also end up with more flexibility: Person A doesn't need to constantly support Feature A because they built it and they're the only one who knows how it works, so you're getting more value out of their time.

In the long-term, I do think product-wide you always have teams at different levels of maturity. Some know more about the problems they're solving and how best to solve them, others know less. Some will move fast, some will build to last. The more a team knows about their problem, or the more a problem cuts across teams, the more I think they should build to last, so investment in those areas scales over a large group or important areas of the business.

Re: Hidden costs of constantly shipping new things

#22

Post by macjohnmcc »

montagg wrote: post #5

I work at a company that grew from a few hundred to a few thousand people in a few years' time, and there was an identical mindset and identical problems over that growth period. I started during that growth period, and 10 years later, we're still digging ourselves out of those mistakes. One reason for this was how heavily we prioritized first mover advantage. We pushed extremely hard to get into new markets, and whi…

I worked at a small company that was always chasing the next potential sale. Potential customer mentions feature A and all of a sudden all development shifts towards developing that feature. The vast majority of the time the potential customer never became a customer. In the meantime competition focused on their own plan of features and our product wound up with features no one ever wanted and was missing critical functionality everybody demanded.

Re: Hidden costs of constantly shipping new things

#23

Post by wastedhours »

OliverGilan wrote: post #19
montagg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes, I am saying from a business perspective this worked. but I also think we got lucky. Around five years ago, a little before the high profile failure, we were starting to lose marketshare, and though we've been able to claw most of it back, I think it's far more due to missteps of our competitors than our own performance. Had we invested in more sustainable development earlier, I think we would have been abl…

Could there be a hybrid approach? Have teams that focus on being a first mover and shipping and then once there's a product on the market, you have a secondary team focusing on fixing the tech debt early while the other team continues to iterate

At my old company we had an innovation consultant come in and tell us that kind of approach was nearly impossible to manage in the longer term. Apparently teams dedicated to holding the fort grew bitter and had much lower retention than teams on greenfield work.

Paying back the debt, he said, usually requires too much knowledge of a system to cycle teams in and out consistently enough to ensure everyone gets a piece of the new versus the old to keep them engaged.

Whether or not that was backed up by hard data, I'm not sure. It was an interesting angle I hadn't previously thought of though.

Re: Hidden costs of constantly shipping new things

#24

Post by jorblumesea »

montagg wrote: post #5

I work at a company that grew from a few hundred to a few thousand people in a few years' time, and there was an identical mindset and identical problems over that growth period. I started during that growth period, and 10 years later, we're still digging ourselves out of those mistakes. One reason for this was how heavily we prioritized first mover advantage. We pushed extremely hard to get into new markets, and whi…

The core issue, from what I've seen, is one of incentives. Many leaders at many companies are compensated on growth and short term factors. It's hard to find a leader that is willing to take a 5 year look, or even find a leader that is planning on being around 5+ years.

The leadership at my publicly traded company is a revolving door of short term hacks for promos followed by a quick pivot to the competition or another company. It often feels like the C-Suite at most companies thinks at most, 2 years out.

I just can't see many leaders thinking 5 years out.

Re: Hidden costs of constantly shipping new things

#25

Post by JackFr »

OliverGilan wrote: post #19
montagg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes, I am saying from a business perspective this worked. but I also think we got lucky. Around five years ago, a little before the high profile failure, we were starting to lose marketshare, and though we've been able to claw most of it back, I think it's far more due to missteps of our competitors than our own performance. Had we invested in more sustainable development earlier, I think we would have been abl…

Could there be a hybrid approach? Have teams that focus on being a first mover and shipping and then once there's a product on the market, you have a secondary team focusing on fixing the tech debt early while the other team continues to iterate

That is an instant morale problem.

Re: Hidden costs of constantly shipping new things

#26

Post by codemac »

jamil7 wrote: post #10
montagg wrote: post #5

I work at a company that grew from a few hundred to a few thousand people in a few years' time, and there was an identical mindset and identical problems over that growth period. I started during that growth period, and 10 years later, we're still digging ourselves out of those mistakes. One reason for this was how heavily we prioritized first mover advantage. We pushed extremely hard to get into new markets, and whi…

Apart from the one catastrophic failure you mention it sounds like, from a business perspective this worked? You were able to extend your tech debt long enough to start generating money and are now in a position to pay it back. From an engineering perspective I agree it's a grind to pay all this back and lose so much velocity. Are their business strategies that favour slower more careful engineering practises? missio…

> Are their business strategies that favour slower more careful engineering practises?

This is a false dichotomy, and there is plenty of research (and experience) that shows shipping higher quality software actually takes less time and money.

Re: Hidden costs of constantly shipping new things

#27

Post by sundbry »

OliverGilan wrote: post #19
montagg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes, I am saying from a business perspective this worked. but I also think we got lucky. Around five years ago, a little before the high profile failure, we were starting to lose marketshare, and though we've been able to claw most of it back, I think it's far more due to missteps of our competitors than our own performance. Had we invested in more sustainable development earlier, I think we would have been abl…

Could there be a hybrid approach? Have teams that focus on being a first mover and shipping and then once there's a product on the market, you have a secondary team focusing on fixing the tech debt early while the other team continues to iterate

Then you just end up with the first team continuing to produce garbage, and leaving it up to the 'fixers' to clean it up.

Re: Hidden costs of constantly shipping new things

#28

Post by LanguageGamer »

codemac wrote: post #26
jamil7 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from the one catastrophic failure you mention it sounds like, from a business perspective this worked? You were able to extend your tech debt long enough to start generating money and are now in a position to pay it back. From an engineering perspective I agree it's a grind to pay all this back and lose so much velocity. Are their business strategies that favour slower more careful engineering practises? missio…

> Are their business strategies that favour slower more careful engineering practises? This is a false dichotomy, and there is plenty of research (and experience) that shows shipping higher quality software actually takes less time and money.

I want to believe this. Do you have any citations?

My experience would suggest shipping higher quality software is a lot cheaper in the long run, but has up-front costs that often times startups can't afford.

Re: Hidden costs of constantly shipping new things

#29

Post by Spivak »

codemac wrote: post #26
jamil7 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from the one catastrophic failure you mention it sounds like, from a business perspective this worked? You were able to extend your tech debt long enough to start generating money and are now in a position to pay it back. From an engineering perspective I agree it's a grind to pay all this back and lose so much velocity. Are their business strategies that favour slower more careful engineering practises? missio…

> Are their business strategies that favour slower more careful engineering practises? This is a false dichotomy, and there is plenty of research (and experience) that shows shipping higher quality software actually takes less time and money.

These points aren't as opposed as you're making them seem. Throughput is better with careful planning and good design is an investment that pays off later.

Slapping it together pays off today but at the cost of acquiring a debt that costs lower average velocity and lower agility until its repaid.

A lot of small businesses make the decision to take on debt to move quickly at the beginning because the most important thing is initial growth and proving that you can actually make money.

Re: Hidden costs of constantly shipping new things

#30

Post by coldcode »

jmull wrote: post #15

Hm... this article actually seems like a better argument to obsessively focus on constantly shipping new things than the opposite.

Being bought out for large money often covers up the nightmare that would have been, and shifts it to someone else.
Post reply on HN