"Move fast and break things" is sadly misunderstood

  • 12 March 2022
  • 3 replies
  • 54 views
Henrik Ståhl
Userlevel 7
Badge +7

I recently wrote a story on Medium about how I believe the famous motto “move fast and break things” is misunderstood – maybe even by those who coined the term.

Because I am indeed a move fast and break things kind of person. But I have come to understand that I might not interpret the infamous Facebook mantra the same way most others do. My version goes like this:

  • You discuss what needs to be done.
  • You make a rough plan and put together a strategy, if needed (what I mean is, if there isn’t one already — you always need a strategy).
  • You gather enough insights to craft a hypothesis.
  • When you’ve set the direction, you move fast.

There’s no point in trying to identify and specify every single known (and unknown) unknown in advance, because it’s simply impossible. If you embrace the fact that you’ve probably missed something causing things to break, it’s easier to mitigate when faced with such a situation. And it’s much more wasteful spending months of testing stuff if they end up breaking when shipped to production anyway.

I’d much rather plan for failure than fooling myself that all risks have been mitigated in advance. The devil is in the details and devils are tricksters and masters of disguise. Craft a plan for how to kill them when they appear instead of fruitlessly trying to smoke ’em out.

The full article:

https://medium.com/codex/move-fast-and-break-things-is-sadly-misunderstood-f6684a55661a

What are your thoughts on this?

3 replies

Kiron Bondale
Userlevel 7
Badge +6

Agreed @Henrik Ståhl -

Being just to the left of the “optimal” level of planning is a good place to be. Anything less and you face too many unknowns, anything more is waste.

I’m also a fan of effective risk management - de-risk early, spend sufficient effort exploring scope and delivery approaches to make sure you don’t box yourself in, and prove your selected architecture early.

Finally, empowering teams to be semi-autonomous, but self-governing will give them the freedom and confidence to deal with challenges as they emerge in a timely, experiment-driven way, rather than having to relay every issue up the flagpole…

Kiron

Kiron D. Bondale, PMP, PMI-ACP, PSM II, ICP-ACC, DASSM, DAC, DAVSC, PMI-RMP
Henrik Ståhl
Userlevel 7
Badge +7

@Kiron Bondale Exactly! You need to leave room for experimentation, especially when dealing with unknowns. And that's impossible if you try to mitigate every potential risk in advance.

Alexis Luscutoff
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

I loved this line, @Henrik Ståhl - 

I’d much rather plan for failure than fooling myself that all risks have been mitigated in advance. 

Not only do I think this is the most realistic way to think about our work, I think it’s the kindest way for us to think about our work, as well. Planning for failure - or more gently put, planning for unknown unknowns - encourages us to be flexible and adaptable, rather than rigidly sticking to what we think we know. Planning for failure allows us to learn and change as time passes, rather than stubbornly sticking to a plan that isn’t working. 

Reply


Terms & Conditions