Diminishing Returns

So let’s examine this step by step. First, let’s look at the idea that the compromise solution of a “false endpoint” won’t be as good as the perfect solution of a “play” result. In pragmatic terms, what this means is that by spending more time on the solution (an unknown amount of time), some improvement on the solution will be obtained. So basically, you spend more and you get more. Then the question is, are you getting your money’s worth with the extra time you spend on a solution?

The pareto principle hints that 80% of the results will likely come out of 20% of the work. If the 20% was done first, and generated the 80% of results, then it is likely that spending another 4 times the initial time is not worth doing for a 20% improvement on the results (no matter what perfectionists may say), unless you have unlimited resources (but most of us don’t). Since we all prefer to deliver better results, I’d propose that time pressure forces us to become better, over time, at recognising what the useful 20% are and at discarding the rest. In a pressure-free environment, however, there is no incentive to focus on what really counts.

In the long term, what you might look at is the “value” that’s been added by all this work. Again, here, the pareto principle holds, and if you constantly, efficiently do 20% of the work in exchange for a “good enough” 80% result, once again, you win, since you’ll be able to produce 5 times as many products as you would otherwise. So adding time pressure for each task results in an increased number of “shots” at the solution - you could design 5 products targeting the same market, for instance, or 5 products targetting different markets (which would then perhaps have a better chance of being lucky and hitting a sweet spot).

The Unknowable Marketplace

Why would you want to do that, though? Surely, you know what the best market is, and what the best solution is going to look like, and how successful it will be… don’t you? Well, no. Business is not only a world of limited resources, it is also one of great uncertainties. Before you put a product in front of users, you don’t know what they need, and so you can’t even begin to aim for perfection (via play or otherwise). Instead, the best result is derived by getting the “simplest thing that works” out there and seeing how it fails, and then improving on it incrementally. Chances are, until you’ve got your product out there, you won’t be able to even recognise the best solution if it bashes down your door and yells at you.

There’s one last counter-argument here. What about creative activities? What about advertising? Writing? Won’t they benefit from a “play” approach and the removal of deadlines to allow doodling away until the best solution is reached?

For this, I turn to reality. My father used to be a journalist, and once of the things he told me is that as a journalist, you are required to produce creative output to an extremely tight deadline. I have friends in advertising who tell me the same. Many writers work by setting themselves a daily target. It’s perhaps not very surprising, but what works in a more engineering type of business (e.g. software development) also applies to softer, more traditionally creative activities.

Conclusion

In conclusion, what I believe it comes down to is this: deadlines focus the mind, enforce prioritisation, and ensure that some form of value is delivered. A pressure-free environment may or may not produce a great result by the end. A pressurised environment will produce a good enough result, and leave you with spare time to improve on it.

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