I have yet even more to talk about on this topic!

I used to work for an organization whose motto was “The Constant Pursuit of Perfection!”. I think this is great. But let’s talk about that concept, of “perfection”.

Can anything ever be perfect? As we’ve been discussing, we can’t even assert that anything will ever be completed, much less perfected. I assert that in the realm of engineering, especially software engineering and IT, that nothing is ever perfect, just as nothing is ever done. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t strive for that. Perfection and completeness are abstract concepts that you would use to guide you in the right direction. As in, when you are adding engineering work items to the backlog, you are adding things that move your product in the direction being complete, done, and (dare I say it) perfect. You’ll never get there, but it’s a direction to move towards.

This can be a nuanced concept, not really to grasp, but to utilize. Because although you are constantly pursuing perfection, at the same time you have to recognize that you will never get there. So you have to make mindful decisions on where your milestones and baselines are. Where are the various places things are “good enough”?

With some things, this can be a tough decision. Something like a book you are publishing. Sure, you can publish errata and new editions, but generally speaking a book is fairly immutable artifact, and thus the decision you make on when to baseline is fairly critical. For some software product, though, in the modern age of CI/CD, there’s not as much downside to publishing a release while still having features in the backlog.

So what’s important is for you to understand the type of decision you have (whether something is easy to publish future releases or not), and then deciding where your cutline is for features and content you want in your product. But the point I’m trying to convey is, if you discover that you have a decision where future releases are fairly easy, then don’t let yourself hold up releases waiting on some mythical “perfect” state. Make a decision what is truly Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and get your product out the door!