If your gonna fuck up, do it early

I’ve worked in the online industry for the last 12 years or so, one thing above all else I’ve learned in my time in this industry

You are going to fuck it up

Now I use the phrase “fuck it up” in place of fail for effect, for impact, ya know if this was a power point there would be one whole slide dedicated to the phrase “you are going to fuck it up” yes, that lesson is that important.

Now you might think what a great way to instantly ruin any project! So what your telling me Chris is no matter what, I’m going to fuck this project I’m about to start working on up?

Yes, that is what I’m telling you… But, its not the only thing that I’m going to tell you.

There’s an expression that’s become increasingly popular in the development world as the popularity of agile and lean development rises.

“Fail early, fail often”

It sounds so insanely wrong so anti everything you’ve ever learned doesn’t it?  Once you get over the stigma of failure you’ll quickly realize that failure isn’t as bad as you’ve been conditioned to perceive it.  Early failures cost less both in financial terms as well as in more personal ways that we won’t touch on here.

The concept of fail early, fail often is wonderfully summed up (quote stolen from codinghorror.com)

Learning doesn’t happen from failure itself but rather from analyzing the failure, making a change, and then trying again. Over time this gives you a deep understanding of the problem domain. (Michael Hunter on fail early and often)

I sum it up a bit differently: “The only real failures are ones that you don’t learn from”

So go out there dev’s and fail away, not only are you going to understand more about the stuff your working on, but you’ll likely discover more about yourself and the people around you as well.