I used to believe that it was my job to get the customer the most functionality as quickly as possible. Rough edges didn’t matter.

If the customer could live with the strange workflow, a quirky UI, or some other abnormality, so could I. It was more important to get the usable code out there. We’ll smooth the edges out later. Which is fine if it actually happens. But, it never really seems to work out that way.

So, nowadays I am not so sure. Even if the customer wants the functionality, I wonder if we do them a disservice by giving it to them. Perhaps it is a matter of who says it is “done-done”, but I am beginning to wonder if it is better to deliver the tiniest bit of functionality (iteratively of course) until it is freaking awesome. No rough edges, no quirks. Just awesomeness. Then, we move on.

This entails finding out what the heart of the functionality is and only doing that. Also, we need a customer that acknowledges the rough edges whether they face the user or are in the code. Hmmmm.

Well, like I said, I am not so sure. But I am beginning to wonder.