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Hi everyone. Here is Ricardo Vargas, and this is the 5 Minutes Podcast. Today I like to discuss "Done is Better Than Perfect" in the context of the projects. And why is this super important? Because, of course, in a perfect world, it would be fantastic to say, oh, I deliver things that are perfect, so it's done and perfect. But we need to understand that this is, most of the time, simply unfeasible. It's just impossible because there are a lot of trade-offs you need to have in mind when you are delivering your project. And let me start by telling you some ideas about that. The first one is that we need to understand the cost of perfectionism. We need to understand that being perfectionist comes with a cost comes with a cost. And I'm not saying just financial cost. I'm talking about costs due to delays, due to rework, due to over-engineering. So, most of the time, we need to understand that there is a point where an increase in the perfection of the product costs a massive amount of money and time and improves the product just by a marginal rate. It's the law of diminishing returns. For example, let me give you two examples. If you are manufacturing, for example, a sound system, after a certain point in the quality of your sound system, the cost starts to skyrocket to improve just a little bit on the quality of the sound. So instead of having, you know, a speaker that costs $300 and is absolutely excellent, you go to a $30,000 that is better, of course, than the $300 but it's if normal people listen to these two speakers, there is a good chance that many of them will not identify the difference. It's the same as I tell people when they think about wine; for example, sometimes a wine costs $10,000 more than another, really 10,000. And probably 99% of the people who drink wine will not recognize this advantage. So there is a point where, you know, you start losing track of the actual value of what you are doing. And this drives me to the second point. That is one of my favorite concepts in Agile. It's the concept of MVP or minimum viable product and why this mindset of MVP is so important. Most of the time, we want to create a product or a service that lasts forever. This does not exist, so most of the time, you need to be smart to create products that are good enough to get traction. And then you start improving this product. Because sometimes for you to release an MVP that is absolutely perfect, it will take you so much time that you just lose the opportunity. This is what is happening; for example, are the current products on I perfect? Of course not. Of course not. But what, for example, OpenAI did? They released a product, and on top of that result, they started testing waters and improving testing waters and improving testing waters and improving. And this is the concept of MVP because most of the time, if you want to release the perfect product, you will be late and you will pay a massive amount of money due to the loss of the opportunity to be, for example, the first in the market or to be a pioneer. And this is exactly the mindset that we see today in all technological products, in all startup mindsets. So how you can get traction spending, you know, a few weeks and spending a small amount of money instead of just spending a huge amount and spending years to develop something to test if it will work or not. And this drives me to the third point, is the balance between quality and timeliness. Time to market is almost as important as quality in a world that is super volatile, in a world that is changing at such a dramatic pace. Getting things done brings a huge amount of value. Sometimes, it's much better to have it done than to have it perfect. And I'm not. Look, I'm not saying that you should produce garbage. This is different. This is different. It's to produce a product that is good enough to start, and from that point you improve, you improve the product. Gains maturity. It's like the first version of ChatGPT and the current version, probably in one year from now, we will see versions that will make the current version look very obsolete. But this is the evolution process, so we need to get ready. For example, one of the biggest advantages of ChatGPT compared with other competitors in this field is how fast they were to be on the market and to have something ready, useful, and good enough to gain traction and to get people using the fourth one. That is also for me, one of the most important is the impact of Don on stakeholder trust. Look, people don't want to buy slide decks. People don't want to buy pitch decks. People want to buy things that will be done. The ability to execute. And this is why project management is becoming so important. Because we are the ones getting things done. So it's super important because what happens when I buy something that is not ready yet? One of the first criteria I use is who is behind that. Do I trust the people behind? Do I trust that specific stakeholder? Because maybe that stakeholder did not produce the best service, but the history and the trajectory of that creates a massive support for me to move on. And the opposite side is the same. I know when probably all of you know two people that are just, I would say blah, blah, blah, you know, people that just say, oh, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. And in the end, there is nothing ready. There is nothing. I will do this, I will release this, I will do that. And in the end, just nothing happens. So, the impact of Don getting things done has a massive impact on stakeholder trust. One of the best. I love working with people that are able to get things done. And this is an asset. This is an asset because sometimes people are so perfectionist, for example, you are writing a book and you are so perfectionist, so perfectionist that you never, ever get it done. For example, just out of curiosity, I said this many times I never listen my own podcast, for example. I'm talking now from the top of my mind. And I never listen to that. Why? Because if I listen to this, I will be trapped. And what will happen? I will start correcting it. Oh, I didn't say this correctly. My English here was not very good. At the end, I will never be able to do that for almost 17 years in a row, every single week. Why? Because it's not perfect, and if it was supposed to be perfect, it would be once a year. And this is the relevance of getting it done. And finally, how to avoid this. So let me give you three tips. The first one is priorities. Understand what the priority is. What is important? It's to deliver on that timeline or is to deliver on this which kind of features, which kind of characteristics on the product are the most valuable one that you should put your focus. The second one uses the time box technique. It means, what is the best I can do in two weeks? It's not what is the best thing I can do. If you have three months, of course, and you are smart, you will produce something that is better than in two weeks. This is normal. But what happens? Imagine you crafting the perfect chocolate egg for Easter. For Easter, your chocolate is so good, so good that it gets its. It's ready one month after Easter. So what is the point? What's the point? You are creating the best Black Friday campaign that is ready one month after Black Friday. And this concept is super important, so Time Box will help you with that. And finally, focus on what is the project's ultimate goal. What is the target? What is the target? You know. Imagine if you are opening a restaurant. You need to understand what is the ultimate goal of that restaurant. What will people come in for? What will they have, a place where they want to enjoy their entertainment, or do they want efficient food because they don't have too much time and they need to come back to work? Did you see that? Both restaurants. But the priorities of one restaurant are very different from the other. And if you do not know that, you can create the most fancy restaurant with a value proposition that does not match and you will fail. Remember, failure is much easier than success. There's much more possibility to fail. This is why sometimes you need to have things done and get ready. For example, if I was trying to create a perfect book, I would never, ever release a book, and I would have the opportunity to release 16. And why did I do that? Because at some point you just need to release and say, and now I need to accept the criticism because it's done now, it's done now the next one or the next version, I will improve that. And this is the mindset in this changing environment we are living in. Without that mindset of getting things done and being able to adapt, reinvent, and learn, you will never be able to compete in this type of volatility. Think about that always, and see you next week on another 5 Minutes podcast.
