CAT | Innovation
Last weekend I biked my first century. It was an “easy” course and was supposed to be a beautiful day. I wasn’t expecting anything to go wrong, but as luck would have it, a lot did. I struggled to finish.
Looking back, I think there are a few reasons why it wasn’t as easy as I had hoped:
- I got 5 hours of sleep the night before
- I didn’t train much
- I didn’t drink enough water the night/week before
- I got lost, and ended up biking an extra six miles
Whoa, back up… what was that last one?
“I ended up biking an extra six miles”
I’d like to call these my “bonus miles”. Even though I went off-course at the time, lost a few minutes off my time, and made the rest of the race a little harder… it forced me to push myself a further, get a better workout, and gave me the confidence that if needed, I can go even further. It also taught me a valuable lesson — don’t get lost. So even though it was a short-term loss, it ended up being a long-term gain.
So how does this relate to programming?
Bonus coding. Sometimes we get lost in what we are programming. Sometimes it’s a miscommunication. Sometimes it’s a false assumption. But often times we find ourselves in a place where we’ve coded for a long amount of time and end up having to throw it all away. It’s not the best feeling in the world — it actually makes you feel like you’ve just wasted valuable time from your life. But it’s more than that. You’ve gained more experience in the wrong way to code. Like biking, it’s a short-term loss, but a long-term gain. Just learn from it and try not to repeat the same mistakes.
Just remember in your coding that your career isn’t a sprint, it’s a century — a marathon. Go at a steady pace, learn from your mistakes, and don’t get yourself down at short-term losses.
Some coworkers and myself had a nice discussion over dinner tonight about how things have changed over time. More particularly, we talked about the wildly popular game “Duck Hunt”. Yes, the Nintendo one. How in the world does that thing work? After some discussion, Nate Brunson finally whipped out his iPhone and came across this article detailing how Duck Hung works. It’s all pretty interesting stuff, and it was all done way before its day.
But Nintendo wasn’t Agile!
The thing is, if Nintendo were made in the “agile” world of today, would it have been released with Duck Hunt? Would Duck Hunt ever had existed? My inclination is no. It would have been labeled as “too much scope for the first increment, we should release Mario Brothers, analyze the results, and go from there”. Immediately following Mario Brothers, which would be a hit (obviously), they would follow up with Mario Bros 2, because hey, the first one did well. After 2, the third increment would be… (surprise) Mario Bros 3. Eventually the idea of Duck Hunt would have been forgotten.
If you want to change the world, don’t wait until the next increment
The point is that sometimes innovation comes at a cost. You can’t always slim down functionality to meet a deadline, and still expect to be innovative. If there is an incredible idea out there to be had, even if you’re not sure what kind of time it will take, resources need to be devoted, or even if it’s possible, you still need to just go for it.
Where did we go wrong?
Why are we so afraid to just get things done? I personally thinks it comes down to people not wanting accountability, or they want to be absolutely positive that they can do what they say. They are afraid to stretch themselves. They really don’t care about being innovative. They care about the business, about money, and about following a “standard procedure” or “following the most effective way of doing something”. Seth Godin is very popular and incredibly successful because he gives people the magic formula to creating a good product. The only problem is that he doesn’t do it for you. I’m not saying processes are a bad thing, I’m just saying that eventually some crazy guy needs to sit down, do the impossible, and get it done. Don’t believe me? How about the names Steve Wozniak, Ed Logg, or Brad Fitzpatrick? Chew on them apples….
