Are we Building the Right Product?
As we work on developing a resource, we often sit back and ask ourselves, “Are we building the product right?”. This is extremely important to do as often as possible to ensure that we are consistently meeting our requirements.
However, at one point in the development process, we also need to take a moment to ask, “Are we Building the Right Product?”. Sometimes, even our users don’t exactly know what the right product is, so although we may be building the product right according to the requirements, we may still be building the wrong product!
So how do we avoid this problem? Keep on interacting with your users throughout the development process to get continuous feedback. Have your users test what you have done thus far and help them better discover their needs. Remember, you want them to use the product once it is finished.
Sure, you can always build exactly what they initially asked for, hand it to them, take your pay check and run… But wouldn’t you rather they recommend you to others or potentially hire you again in the future? And if you are developing internal software instead? Do you really want your boss to tell you that you need to start over or possibly even fire you? Probably not!
You are responsible for your software, take pride in developing it!
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