🔮 Can we predict product development schedules?

Estimating or predicting product development is difficult. Teams often end up adding a 2-3x padding to any estimate, because bitter experience has taught them not to depend on their own estimates.

There will always be a high degree of variability in product development, especially software development. Product development involves doing something new. Teams discover exactly what they are building along the way. No one can completely plan it up front.

However, we can do better. What is most damaging is not that a product is six months late, rather it is that we did not figure this out until shortly before the original anticipated release date.

Release First is a simple solution. By the time the planned release date comes around, you have released dozens if not hundreds of releases. Some releases may be documents, some may be hardware, and others software. But there have been many opportunities for others to use something and provide feedback. Additionally, you have had lots of practice releasing so there are no surprises. We may have learned that it will take an extra 6 months to finish the product, but we learned that early and the business has had time to adjust. Or we may have gained so much efficiency through automation, and reduced wasted effort to a level that we come out ahead of schedule (what we really want).

Release First eliminates surprises, and that is what matters in business.