🐙 You think deploying software is painful and expensive? Try not deploying it!
To tie it back to theory quickly: those who have come in contact with Lean manufacturing will recognise “inventory” as one of the nine wastes Lean defines (the -> I in TIMWOODS :-) )
But how can a feature, how can software code be a waste? I mean, it doesn’t take up space (not meaningfully, anyway, in the age of terabyte-sized hard drives). It just sits there, all nice and passive and harmless, right? So why not hold on to it for a little while longer before shipping it?
Because it isn’t nice and passive at all!
First of all, this product or feature ought to be making you money, by being used in production. But it isn’t. Yet you invested precious resources into creating it. It ought to be earning its keep, giving you an ROI. Not just sitting there.
But it gets worse.
its mere existence creates cost! Because it has to be considered during all other activities on the product. Is it compatible? Will a change break the feature? Will future development be forced to take a more circuitous approach in order to accommodate this existing (yet unproductive) code?
So… can you even afford not to 🚢 ship as early and as often as possible?
(Photo by Christie Thomas from FreeImages)