3/28/2011

How Failing Fast allows you to reframe the problem

Just read an article on Fast Company on how human powered flight was solved by Paul MacCready. It's really cool because it's not a software story, but it has so many similarities with software. Success centers around creating an environment where you can iterate on your idea. I like stories like this because the motto of "fail fast" gets hollow as it is over used. After a while It's hard to remember what it originally meant. Stories help re-affirm it's meaning.

In so many ways this is really what agile software development is trying to get you to. Agile demands a lot from your team, and the only way you can live up to the promises of agile development is to create this environment. Without it you'll just fail, or worse just survive on far less productivity.

No more big design up front. It failed people for human powered flight, it failed for cars, and it failed for software.

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663488/wanna-solve-impossible-problems-find-ways-to-fail-quicker

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