Perfection, the elusive enemy of the hard worker

Posted by admin at January 26, 2017

To be perfect or deliver perfection, is a goal, the best of us strive to achieve. And achieving this elusive dream takes the most limited resource we as humans possess, Time.

Perfection, to me is the sister nemesis of Average, fighting us from the other spectrum. As Average demands the comfortable status quo, opposes change, and promotes laziness, Perfection is the enticing yet elusive concept propels the hard worker to believe, that at every stage, there is always something to be done to make a system, process or thought better. This might seem a good thing, but as the hard working developer or thinker improves on an old product/concept over and over, a tipping point is reached, where the end-users of the product/concept can utilize it a 100%. From then on, the developer wastes his/her time developing useless features that are not needed.

And perfection also subjective. What is perfect for one may not even be enough for another. This perfection-oriented thinking keeps the mind dwelling on an overworked concept, tunnel vision sets in and the results may vair off target from what the end-user wants.

The developer or thinker that succeeds is the hard working talent that understands when to stop working, stop planning, stop making it better, move on and find new solutions, as time passing. The key I think, would be, to continuously study and posses an in-depth understanding of the people (clients, end-users) who will be using the product/concept being developed, who they are, their habits, how the product/concept will change their lives. This education process will help the developer/thinker measure when to stop working and release a product/concept.

Some illustrations:

1. Game releases, upgrades, patches and DLCs: The Grand Theft Auto series completely revolutionised the gaming industry and brought a new meaning to exploration in videos games. It introduced the open world simulation that kept gamers busy even after finishing the main story. However, this franchise started from a simple arcade, sandbox, top-down 2D game in its early days. GTA from those days is a far cry from the humongous 3D universes released by the team today. The RockStar success would not be possible if they focused on delivering todays perfection in those 2D days. They had an idea, developed a working game, and release it.

2. Patches, Upgrades, Alpha/Beta versions:
Software releases since the early 90s have shown a trend of publishing companies releases their products to the market before they are perfected. versioning and upgrades releases to the customer on bit sizes even after the initial release. Alpha and beta versions of software applications allow the users to test the application be fore the release of the first version. The publishing company can test the performance of their product in the market as well have a log of errors and bug reports sent to them directly from their users. Some companies make money selling their offerings to market while still testing and perfecting their products through release updates, upgrades, patches and downloadable content.

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