Product Mythology 

A series of blog posts outlining commonly-heard myths from the product community.

Product development has historically been much more of an art than a science. In turn, the way the product vertical operates often feels more like putting out fires than running a successful team. Because of its artistic nature, the vertical as a whole has done a large, collective shoulder shrug in determining how to solve many of the problems that face it:

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1. Poor estimation of work
2. Inability to set reliable expectations
3. Lack of predictability across the entire product development process

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Cardagraph has set out to solve these problems. Join us as we debunk a couple of the most widespread product myths!

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Product Myth #1: Speed > Predictability

Faster does not always mean better. 

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It’s pretty obvious that if code is written quickly but includes a lot of bugs, it is not inherently better than code that’s written slower with higher quality. Either way, the more important point in this equation lies in who’s relying on the timelines that are set. 

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Let’s consider three different scenarios where a CEO is told that it will take 2 months to complete a project.

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If the project is done in one month, their reaction would be something like, “You’re done? Marketing hasn’t even started the campaign! Sales haven’t been selling it! I appreciate the work but we’ll have to wait until everybody else is ready!”

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If the product is done in 3 months, their reaction would be, “Why are we so late? What do we need to do to get faster?”

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If the product is done in two months, everyone is happy. The CEO is pleased, the product team feels accomplished, and the other verticals are appreciative of the hard work.

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You’ll find that the speed in this scenario makes virtually no impact. So what’s important? 

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Expectations. 

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With the entire business working off of the timelines and expectations that are being set, predictability is far more important than speed.

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And in almost every case, the alignment that comes with reliably hitting timelines and meeting expectations far outweighs the benefits of increased speed. 

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–

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Predictability is the goal of our platform at Cardagraph. For too long, product has been setting itself up to fail because estimations are flawed and the inputs that you need to factor into a calculation like this are both hard to get to and hard to use.

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Cardagraph takes the required inputs from ticketing tools and automatically calculates reasonable expectations. Then, as you work towards that projected completion date, it keeps you in the loop as to when the project is off-track and allows you to create simulations of what would happen if you made changes to scope or resources. 

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Instead of making guesses based on assumptions, set expectations based on reality.

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Jordan Hale

Director of Growth

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