When Is Good Enough, Good Enough?

Clarisse Meyer

This is often quoted by the software industry where being slow and waiting for perfection to launch can be an excuse just to stop yourself putting something out there.  A more nimble competitor will likely beat you to market with an "inferior" product.  This can be true with any industry, obviously.

But the opposite can also be an excuse.  "We are not waiting for perfection" can be used as an excuse for crappy, not well thought out product, terrible processes and poor customer service.  An excuse to not strive for continuous improvement.  And to argue about whether you are aiming for perfection or not is completely futile as you have to define what perfect is.  

If you have to define anything, then better to just define what "good enough" is.  What features can we live without?  What has to be there?  When something is good enough, using your previous criteria, then it is good enough.  Ship it.

​The thing that a lot of companies trying to copy silicon valley's way of doing things miss is that minimum viable product actually needs to be viable.  You cannot launch with a shell that does not actually do anything.  You cannot launch an X management system that does not calculate, report or analyse X correctly.  You cannot use MVP like a snake oil salesman and expect that not to impact your reputation and your customers.  

Once you launch, you need to keep getting better.  Should you then strive for perfection?  Or at least excellence? I would say yes.  Through a ladder of "good enough" steps, each getting you closer and closer to an end vision.  

You cannot ship a new car if the wheels fall off.  Arguing that the customer wants a perfect car because he wants the wheels to stay would be quite arrogant. In a world where even the big software companies (looking at you Apple) release updates that break core workflows of their users, this is simply not sustainable.

I think at some point Silicon Valley will take some lessons from the history of manufacturing processes and two companies who should be at the forefront of this are Tesla and Apple.  Who will bring stability to innovation first?

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