The expressions “Build the right thing” and “Build the thing right” are helpful in connecting practices with outcomes and expressing how the two ideas are complementary.
Sometimes I speak with people who are not seeing that shipping sooner and more often is a necessary part of building the right thing. For these occasions I thought it might be helpful to make this more explicit.
Sometimes I speak with people who are focussed more on one consideration than the others. Though complimentary, they also compete to some degree for attention and resource and need to be appropriate for the situation – it isn’t just about more of all three. This ternary variation of the yin-yang idea represents that there may be tension between these considerations and that they need to find a balance.
Thank you to everyone in LinkedIn’s Agile & Lean Software Development Forum who contributed to the discussion that helped shape the idea.
