Lately, working with my PM and designer, I feel we’ve come to a simple realization: now that building software is easier than ever, especially when it comes to UIs and APIs, we need to get much faster at making decisions.
I wrote about this in From Inspired to Expired, about the bottleneck moving from engineering to product discovery. Once you optimize one bottleneck, it moves somewhere else. Right now it’s on decision-making and alignment.
Whoever manages to discover, learn, and research fast, then actually align on a decision, is going to win. In the past couple of days I’ve been feeling this more and more.
Timebox everything
What we’ve started doing is timeboxing the decisions that matter. If we’re discussing something, we say “let’s make this decision in three hours.” Or by tomorrow. Or by end of day. Whatever makes sense. The point is to put a limit on it so something actionable comes out the other end, not another open-ended discussion that trails off.
The process itself is what I described in that article. Come up with 10 variations. The designer produces a number of solutions, the team goes through ideation quickly. Then narrow it down to two or three. Sit again. Narrow further. Then build.
Stop discussing invisible things
Instead of plainly discussing something that’s not even in front of your eyes, always have something to look at before you decide.
Decisions don’t need to be final
At least some of the revelation I keep having is straightforward. Decisions need to be fast. People need to be aligned, at least to some degree. Not to the final degree, not in any way, shape, or form. But aligned enough to move.
Due to the iterative speed we can write software today, there’s no reason to sit on a decision longer than you have to.
As a tech lead, I’m going to push my team harder on this. Less dwelling on possibilities, more starting with prototypes. More producing variations and then narrowing down. Stop trying to prolong or vaguely agree on something that might not ever be mentioned again.
Just make a decision. The new hero on the block.