5 ms·

This is a joke, and the reason why is because even if you “deliver” a headline, you are unlikely to be “done”. It runs counter to the approach of incrementally

This is a joke, and the reason why is because even if you “deliver” a headline, you are unlikely to be “done”. It runs counter to the approach of incrementally shipping functionality, listening to feedback, and adjusting. Headlines are so non-specific that you could “deliver” a headline that could easily not really meet a customer need. This is a nightmare, because you end up working long hours on valueless work… and upset all your stakeholders by ignoring their urgent requests to deliver small fixes and enhancements to instead just do the one thing you said you would, even though it ends up being worthless.

ergonaught 2y ago
If you cannot simply articulate the actual need met by whatever you've shipped, you have failed to understand that need and probably even what you shipped.
aerhardt 2y ago
The face of the author, if this isn’t a joke and commenters in the thread are categorically affirming it is. Honestly, I don’t see why a variation of this wouldn’t work. It’s like a headline is a sprint goal or an epic or whatever agile artifact you choose… You can still apply good engineering practices from there on: splitting the work into smaller bills, working against a solid definition-of-done, testing rigorously, etc.
baxtr 2y ago
How can this be a joke if there are companies that actually work like this?
lelanthran 2y ago
> Headlines are so non-specific that you could “deliver” a headline that could easily not really meet a customer need. I don't think so - the headline is simply the goal. If the goal is not "Customer will buy this" then your headline is simply fluff. After all, look at the example headlines: “You can now rent VMs through an API”, “we rolled out FSD autopilot”, “Treasury is available in India”. Those are all goals! "Urgent"[1] requests to deliver small fixes don't, ultimately, matter to business, both provider and supplier. I've never seen business switch software because of bugs. If that was the case, Windows would never have gained the foothold it had over business. No business drops their existing system because it occasionally eats some data, resets everyone's session, or similar. The cost to switch to a competitor is simply too high. [1] As a long-time veteran of software development (25 years), all customers prioritise all their reports "urgent or higher".
- johnobrien1010 2y ago
  Responses inline. > Headlines are so non-specific that you could “deliver” a headline that could easily not really meet a customer need. I don't think so - the headline is simply the goal. If the goal is not "Customer will buy this" then your headline is simply fluff. [JO: I don't understand what you mean here. Are you saying the goals should all be appended with "and the customer buys it?" So, "You can now rent VMS through and API, and customers do?" In which case, wouldn't that be something that has to happen over time and cannot be delivered solely by engineering by an arbitrary date?] After all, look at the example headlines: “You can now rent VMs through an API”, “we rolled out FSD autopilot”, “Treasury is available in India”. Those are all goals! [JO:I agree that they are all goals. My assumption though is that just reaching those goals is not sufficient for success. If you goal is "customer can now rent VMs through an API", my assumption is that to meet that initial goal a MVP will be delivered. My further assumption is that the MVP will not have all the features it will ultimately need to be commercially successful and so will need to be iterated on to be better than the alternatives customers have available to them. So, devoting engineering resources to the next headline and not iterating and improving the MVP would be a mistake. If you keep doing that, you end up with a bunch of half-baked marginal products, none of which is successful.] "Urgent"[1] requests to deliver small fixes don't, ultimately, matter to business, both provider and supplier. [JO: I disagree. In the B2B setting at least, I've seen customers cancel because commitments to make minor enhancements for them were not honored. It is rare but it does happen. In addition, while customers rarely cite a specific bug as the reason to cancel, they often cite things like "bad UI" or "bad usability" or "lack of adoption", which IMHO is sometimes the way that customers articulate their experience and/or the results of working with a buggy product.] I've never seen business switch software because of bugs. If that was the case, Windows would never have gained the foothold it had over business. [JO: Can you tell me more about what you are thinking about here? In general, I think Microsoft is a tricky example to use, because they have something of a "natural monopoly", and unless you happen to be working at another company that also has such a natural monopoly, an example based off Microsoft may not be applicable.] No business drops their existing system because it occasionally eats some data, resets everyone's session, or similar. The cost to switch to a competitor is simply too high. [JO: I disagree. Not all existing systems have so high switching costs that customers will tolerate the system losing data.] [1] As a long-time veteran of software development (25 years), all customers prioritise all their reports "urgent or higher". [JO: On that we agree; one of my engineering colleagues used to say, if you say everything is urgent, you are letting the other person decide the priority. A good PM should run interference between such customer requests to provide useful and realistic prioritization, otherwise there is no-prioritization at all.]

ergonaught 2y ago

If you cannot simply articulate the actual need met by whatever you've shipped, you have failed to understand that need and probably even what you shipped.

aerhardt 2y ago

The face of the author, if this isn’t a joke and commenters in the thread are categorically affirming it is. Honestly, I don’t see why a variation of this wouldn’t work. It’s like a headline is a sprint goal or an epic or whatever agile artifact you choose… You can still apply good engineering practices from there on: splitting the work into smaller bills, working against a solid definition-of-done, testing rigorously, etc.

baxtr 2y ago

How can this be a joke if there are companies that actually work like this?

lelanthran 2y ago

> Headlines are so non-specific that you could “deliver” a headline that could easily not really meet a customer need. I don't think so - the headline is simply the goal. If the goal is not "Customer will buy this" then your headline is simply fluff. After all, look at the example headlines: “You can now rent VMs through an API”, “we rolled out FSD autopilot”, “Treasury is available in India”. Those are all goals! "Urgent"[1] requests to deliver small fixes don't, ultimately, matter to business, both provider and supplier. I've never seen business switch software because of bugs. If that was the case, Windows would never have gained the foothold it had over business. No business drops their existing system because it occasionally eats some data, resets everyone's session, or similar. The cost to switch to a competitor is simply too high. [1] As a long-time veteran of software development (25 years), all customers prioritise all their reports "urgent or higher".

johnobrien1010 2y ago
Responses inline. > Headlines are so non-specific that you could “deliver” a headline that could easily not really meet a customer need. I don't think so - the headline is simply the goal. If the goal is not "Customer will buy this" then your headline is simply fluff. [JO: I don't understand what you mean here. Are you saying the goals should all be appended with "and the customer buys it?" So, "You can now rent VMS through and API, and customers do?" In which case, wouldn't that be something that has to happen over time and cannot be delivered solely by engineering by an arbitrary date?] After all, look at the example headlines: “You can now rent VMs through an API”, “we rolled out FSD autopilot”, “Treasury is available in India”. Those are all goals! [JO:I agree that they are all goals. My assumption though is that just reaching those goals is not sufficient for success. If you goal is "customer can now rent VMs through an API", my assumption is that to meet that initial goal a MVP will be delivered. My further assumption is that the MVP will not have all the features it will ultimately need to be commercially successful and so will need to be iterated on to be better than the alternatives customers have available to them. So, devoting engineering resources to the next headline and not iterating and improving the MVP would be a mistake. If you keep doing that, you end up with a bunch of half-baked marginal products, none of which is successful.] "Urgent"[1] requests to deliver small fixes don't, ultimately, matter to business, both provider and supplier. [JO: I disagree. In the B2B setting at least, I've seen customers cancel because commitments to make minor enhancements for them were not honored. It is rare but it does happen. In addition, while customers rarely cite a specific bug as the reason to cancel, they often cite things like "bad UI" or "bad usability" or "lack of adoption", which IMHO is sometimes the way that customers articulate their experience and/or the results of working with a buggy product.] I've never seen business switch software because of bugs. If that was the case, Windows would never have gained the foothold it had over business. [JO: Can you tell me more about what you are thinking about here? In general, I think Microsoft is a tricky example to use, because they have something of a "natural monopoly", and unless you happen to be working at another company that also has such a natural monopoly, an example based off Microsoft may not be applicable.] No business drops their existing system because it occasionally eats some data, resets everyone's session, or similar. The cost to switch to a competitor is simply too high. [JO: I disagree. Not all existing systems have so high switching costs that customers will tolerate the system losing data.] [1] As a long-time veteran of software development (25 years), all customers prioritise all their reports "urgent or higher". [JO: On that we agree; one of my engineering colleagues used to say, if you say everything is urgent, you are letting the other person decide the priority. A good PM should run interference between such customer requests to provide useful and realistic prioritization, otherwise there is no-prioritization at all.]