Scaffolding

I’m really coming to appreciate the value of scaffolding in product development.

What do I mean by scaffolding? The structure that allows you to build the product effectively.

Some examples:

• A group of early customers willing to give fast, high quality feedback
• Sample inputs and outputs that allow you to verify quality
• Analytics or telemetry that give you an early indication of success or failure

You set up scaffolding to help you build. It doesn’t need to be pretty, but it needs to be fast, cheap, and effective. At the end of the project, you take it down. Or maybe you incorporate it into the structure of the product, improving it to make it fit for purpose.

Sometimes the scaffolding feels like a distraction. I’m going to build a whole separate structure just to help me build? Only if you want to build it well.

The best projects I’ve worked on outline the scaffolding early. These are the support structures we’ll need to do good work fast.

2024-08-14