Mike's Blabberings

We used to build software like a crappy banana split stand. Grab the banana off the shelf (which probably is about to expire), throw on ice cream, cover it in chocolate, add some cherries, whip cream, nuts, stir it up, put a spoon in it, hand it to the customer, take their money, and let them walk away.

STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!

Stop the gargantuan effort up front, stop compromising the quality of pieces that don’t get seen, stop making your customer wait til the end of the project.

Find a beautiful banana and show it to your customer. Let them take a bite. That might be all they need. Or they might want to take a small piece of it and try it in banana bread. They might not like that. But that’s OK, because we have lots of time and lots of banana left. Take the next piece and make a banana smoothie for them. Maybe add a strawberry for the next sip.

Aaron Oliver might suggest that a good time to have these tastings is right after your daily stand-up.

Let your customer be involved at each step. Let them help you make the right changes early and often. Be agile. Don’t be the hobo behind the bad banana split counter.