INLS 490-121: Collaborative Writing Exercise/Fail Fast

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"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho


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Contents

Constant beta

Web 2.0 has popularized the model of "constant beta" - meaning that most web services we use, from Gmail to Twitter, Facebook to Wikipedia, are all under constant revision. The code behind these applications is not the same from day to day. Developers are improving the code behind their services as we use them, rather than trying to build a perfect product from the start. The lessons of this constant beta model:

  • Deploy fast. There is no time for perfection. Just put out something that works, now - users can tolerate an imperfect product if it adds value to their lives.
  • Fail fast. See how your software breaks. Follow error logs, bug reports, and angry emails. Fix it as you go.
  • Add slow. Learn from users' usage patterns. Find out what they're looking for and figure out how to better give it to them. Add bug fixes and patches as they come along. Introduce new features gradually.

There is no time for perfection

Libraries have traditionally been slow to move on IT projects, either because of the bureaucratic nature of library IT decision-making, or because librarians are striving for perfection. Andrew Pace and Eric Sessoms argue that systems librarians must often choose between perfection and project success. Rather than work forever to produce a perfect product that goes over-deadline, libraries should release timely and potentially imperfect products that meet user needs.

Pettis and Stark's Cult of Done Manifesto:

  • There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
  • Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
  • There is no editing stage.
  • Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
  • Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
  • The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
  • Once you're done you can throw it away.
  • Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
  • People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
  • Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
  • Destruction is a variant of done.
  • If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
  • Done is the engine of more.

Failure is instructive

Not all projects will succeed. Rather than burying failures, we need to learn from them, study them, and use those failures to build future projects that will succeed, or at least fail better.


References

Beckett, S. "Worstward Ho." [1]

Pettis, B., and Stark, K. "The Cult of Done Manifesto."

Pace, A. Presentation to INLS890-160 class, March 2009.

Sessoms, E. Presentation to INLS490-121 class, March 2009.