
The Product Development Triathlon - keithnz
https://www.facebook.com/notes/kent-beck/the-product-development-triathlon/1215075478525314
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gavinpc
Kent Beck discovers the S curve. Of which Peter Norvig says

> You could say that Google makes its living by finding problems that have
> this kind of shape [0]

Kent Beck says,

> I hope I’ve convinced you that this really is an awesome awesome stick.

No, not without an example.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1O3ikmTEdA&t=22m55s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1O3ikmTEdA&t=22m55s)

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y0ssar1an
The Conjoined Triangles of Success

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pedalpete
Maybe something is going around today. I just published a similar article
about how a start-up is not like a marathon, but more like the tour de france
[https://medium.com/@pedalpete/a-startup-isnt-a-marathon-
it-s...](https://medium.com/@pedalpete/a-startup-isnt-a-marathon-it-s-the-
tour-de-france-a36d0754b6c2)

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ben_jones
Full of drugs, male-dominant, and if you removed all the cheaters you wouldn't
know the name of the one guy left?

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signa11
from the comment section in the article:

> Part of the key is letting go of the idea of experiments "failing". An
> experiment only fails if you fail to learn from it. Experiments should turn
> out the way you expect half the time, if you want to maximize learning.

i guess the principle being propounded is that of 'fail early and fail fast'
or be wrong as fast as you can. because, to be wrong as fast as you can
implies that you sign up for aggressive and rapid learning. more importantly,
failure is a manifestation of learning and exploration. if you are not
experiencing failure then you are making a far worse mistake...

as in science, experiments should be considered fact-finding missions that
over a period of time inch towards greater understanding. which implies, that
_any_ outcome is a _good_ outcome, because it yields new information. if your
experiment proved that your initial hypothesis was wrong, better know it
sooner than later.

unfortunately, this is easier in a lab, than in business :(

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ben_jones
I look at it from the perspective that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc., are
all giant tombs of knowledge. I mean can you imagine all the engineering
solutions at Google only in random memos, emails, and water cooler talks? Even
if you fuck up colossally as long as you add SOMETHING to that tomb it's
contributing to the company.

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jauco
Reminds me of David Andersons talk about risk profiles
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YBPa0FE4hRs](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YBPa0FE4hRs)

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joshwa
Mods, please add Kent Beck to the title

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e28eta
It looks like you've been downvoted, but I think it's notable that Kent Beck,
the creator of Extreme Programming, has written something that includes: "what
if those waterfall folks aren’t wrong, what if they are solving a different
problem than I’m solving?"

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wyldfire
I thought you were paraphrasing. That's exactly what he wrote!

This is an interesting article IMO. I don't think many of the organizations
I've worked in are mature enough to shift their process as they cycle through
these phases, though.

