Weekly Reflection #23 - Heartbeats and Handcuffs
Each week, I share one insight. One piece of wisdom. One question to reflect on. (and a little Lagniappe)
Insight
Tony Fadell tells a story in his book, Build, about his time at General Magic. The place was filled with brilliant people, but they had no shipping rhythm and no external pressures. Years passed and the work drifted, missing chances to prove it out with customers. He argues that the way to combat this is with "heartbeats and handcuffs". Heartbeats are an internal cadence. Self-imposed checkpoints and delivery dates. Handcuffs are external constraints. This could be Black Friday, if you are a retailer, or a conference important to your industry.
I've felt the same pull on a project I care about. We kept folding "future" features into the current build. With AI tooling, this has just gotten worse because it's so easy to add "one more thing". Each addition seemed reasonable, but we kept delaying the part that mattered: getting it into anyone's hands.
Recently, we committed to a cadence. Ship something usable. Expand on it. The change has been night and day, for the team and for the audience we built it for.
Sometimes I just need a little reminder on how important it is to leverage both.
Wisdom
Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity.
Bruce Lee
Reflection
What "future feature" are you carrying that should ship now in some smaller form?
Lagniappe
- This week on Book Overflow: Part 1 of Build by Tony Fadell.
- Debug Mode is Thursday, May 21st at 11AM Central on YouTube Live. Free monthly platform engineering office hours.
- As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Reply and let me know what resonates.