The most valuable thing a software team can do is ship. Users care about functionality, about experience, not about your SDLC, your agile rituals, or your naming conventions.

SDLC exists because collaboration needs structure, and structure is overhead even when necessary. Every round of the cycle takes time. Write, review, test, merge, deploy. SDLC slows you down by definition.

A healthy ratio is 80% real work, 20% overhead from the SDLC. I have seen it inverted. Developers stuck in the procedure, not the product. Five times the capex for the same result, and developer time is already the biggest line item in most companies. That is the spend, but the real cost is the release you never made.

[this is still a draft]

Alternative titles:

• The messenger should be invulnerable.

• Protect the messenger.

We’ve all heard the quote “don’t shoot the messenger”, or some variation of it. If you haven’t, the short story is that you shouldn’t kill down the bearer of bad news.

Easy to understand and see why it’s important, but not so easy to internalize.

Example w/ “hey I don’t think this works”

Ties up with Those who do.

[this is still a draft]

Marx: Practice is the only measurement by which […]

Because of this you should always show what you do. [Post about do, then talk, instead of talk, then do]

“That sounds pretty cool. Have you done that?”