Building is Part of Discovering

I’ve noticed that I do my best product work with a team that believes that building is part of discovery — that when we try to fit the pieces together, we learn how they fit and if they fit at all.

One meaningful way this belief shows up is when engineers feel empowered to drive changes to products and designs after we’ve started building them.

I find that most product folks know that it’s the ideal way to discover how the pieces fit together, and if they fit at all.

The underlying principle here is that action leads to insight, which leads to better action, and so on. So applying trial and error as a strategy for making progress seems like a smart one.

And I think we can actually internally validate that it’s a good strategy. It’s why we all agree that the advice to “just get started” is a good one, and why many of us will give that advice.