I am working on a project these days with a lot of effort around balancing speed of delivery with level of testing, design iterations, and QA.
The easy way to say that is: What is the right balance of speed versus perfection of output?
There is parity-of-knowledge in our world; if you use available resources you can know what your competition knows. Quality has been a cost of entry for decades. Even innovation it could be argued is now much more of a price to complete.
So what is left to leverage? How to edge the competition? Just a few thoughts:
1) Radical innovation. Everyone focuses on innovation but not everyone can find a real breakthrough or has the nerve to take the risk.
2) Rapid, incremental, innovation. Google uses this with their constant flow of beta products and versions.
I think the second option is more attainable for many enterprises. Here are a few points in that direction:
- Go to market when you have a core concept. Don’t wait to flesh out every conceivable issue.
- When to pull the trigger on a program or product? As soon as you think you will not have negative impact.
- Build for change by using the most open technologies you can.
- Listen to customer reaction as much as you can via measurement, discussion, and monitoring.
- Iterate often.
There is a version of this approach that will be the "perfect speed" for your team.
There is much more here to explore.
J
