Incremental Design
The core idea of Scrum is delivering a product increment. Instead of planning six months of work upfront and then executing it, you build the product step by step, sprint by sprint, adapting continuously to changes in the market.
But do we really work like that? Features appear incrementally, but is our code built incrementally too?
How to build features
I’m looking at this from a resource management perspective. When the product’s future is up in the air, it makes sense to save up resources to rapidly validate new ideas and then put that banked time toward a more robust solution once a concept is proven to work.
Even in a stable product, it’s important to check as quickly as possible how users react to it. This way, we can save a lot of time on things that aren’t actually needed, and gain a strong advantage over competitors thanks to direct user feedback.
No reaction to a problem is a real problem
The problem is usually not the issue itself. The real problem is not reacting at the right time. Most issues are visible long before they become serious.
Over time, these small, ignored issues grow. What could have been a quick fix turns into something much bigger.
Eventually, it explodes, and suddenly everyone treats it as a major problem.