I agree that prototyping is a great way to solve ambiguity. It also helps on getting traction on your ideas, everyone will remember your individual prototype even when the project is done by the entire team.
At the same time, I think we have to be careful with building the entire thing in a prototype. Depending on the situation, we may be better making a call in favor of one solution instead of prototyping.
I agree yes. Not all cases require prototyping. But most cases where we can replicate some or all the data in production even fake data especially for critical systems, prototyping can prove usefulness even in terms of just analytical and statistical numbers.
For instance in a recent project I worked on, we were implementing a caching mechanism in a critical service and we were assuming certain solution will be better than others but it has beeb proven otherwise when tested on a testing service that contained fake data immitating the data volume in production.
However, I totally agree that we are always going to be between the two choices of "shipping things fast" vs "having more time in testing pre-production release, before shipping"
Exactly, that's the beauty of engineering. If there was a one-size-fits-all approach, it would be boring :)
Thanks for sharing your experience! I think being able to prototype fast is a very important skill that I'm lacking in myself. This tradeoff between shipping fast and exploring solutions can be less of a tradeoff if we can find fast the way to verify the hypothesis
Super useful thoughts. Thank you for sharing, Fran!
I would add prototype testing or PoC to this list. What are your thoughts about that?
I have written an article about the benefits of prototype testing that you can check out here
https://open.substack.com/pub/basmataha199/p/making-informed-decisions-with-prototype?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2tl0x2
Would be honored if you have any feedback 🙂
Thanks for commenting, Basma.
I agree that prototyping is a great way to solve ambiguity. It also helps on getting traction on your ideas, everyone will remember your individual prototype even when the project is done by the entire team.
At the same time, I think we have to be careful with building the entire thing in a prototype. Depending on the situation, we may be better making a call in favor of one solution instead of prototyping.
I agree yes. Not all cases require prototyping. But most cases where we can replicate some or all the data in production even fake data especially for critical systems, prototyping can prove usefulness even in terms of just analytical and statistical numbers.
For instance in a recent project I worked on, we were implementing a caching mechanism in a critical service and we were assuming certain solution will be better than others but it has beeb proven otherwise when tested on a testing service that contained fake data immitating the data volume in production.
However, I totally agree that we are always going to be between the two choices of "shipping things fast" vs "having more time in testing pre-production release, before shipping"
Exactly, that's the beauty of engineering. If there was a one-size-fits-all approach, it would be boring :)
Thanks for sharing your experience! I think being able to prototype fast is a very important skill that I'm lacking in myself. This tradeoff between shipping fast and exploring solutions can be less of a tradeoff if we can find fast the way to verify the hypothesis
Totally agree 💯