Done Means Shipped, Not Just Coded

I don’t get angry much.  But one of the things that sets me off…

… is hearing the words “this feature is complete but not tested”.

😡

Why do we need to state the obvious here?

IS. NOT. COMPLETE.

One way we engineers generate value is by shipping features to our customers so that they use our products and services and pay us for them.

If you built the code, but did not ship the feature, AND turn the feature flag on, AND check that it’s working well in production, AND track some metrics to see it’s performing like you want it to… you are not done. 

Putting it more bluntly, you have achieved little value until you ship.

OK, this may be obvious, but why is this valuable?

All too often, we’ll take something, bring it to some point, and move on to the next thing.  

Not only has no value been created yet, but if you don’t ship it while it’s fresh, there are high chances the next thing will be distracting enough that you’ll never ship the first feature.

You are also likely to introduce time delays and context switches, that increase the probability of shipping mistakes.

So, if this is you, consider doing the following three things differently:

1. Make it clear to your team what activities must be done before you consider something done.
2. Give people space to do these activities, and don’t move them on to the next shiny thing until they are done.
3. Avoid leaving incomplete work lying around (aka work in process).

Incomplete work doesn’t just slow you down—it kills value before reaching your customers.