Code first, ask questions later. That’s the dev shop way. I’ve seen this work in startups when the founders are coders and they are directly coding their vision. Everywhere else—measure twice, cut once. Or, as we say at DOOR3, be slow to code.
Software is a formal expression of something: a view on reality, often of a business process. Get the expression right, which is to say, be accurate, and you’ve made something of value. But for every degree of error, for every degree the expression deviates from the mark, the value depreciates (perhaps logarithmically—a speculation for another day…) as users have to learn new ways of working, develop workarounds, or, worse, the software is rejected only to be rewritten. Which is why, before we write a line of code, we interview, transcribe, analyze, and present. Once it is agreed that we share the same headspace as our client, then we write code.
At DOOR3, software development follows consulting, because it is only during consultation that we come to stand in your shoes and to see your vision. This is why we are slow to code.
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