Work on a burning platform

I like working on a burning platform. By that, I mean developing something customers can already see and use while the work is happening. They can spot errors, give feedback and see things happening. That creates a completely different energy from sitting in the basement polishing a project for months.

Here in August 2010, I’m in my little office showing a concrete example from Amino. We’re rebuilding our expert blogs and subcategories, and users can already look into the building site.

Working on a burning platform gives direct feedback

The usual approach is to keep working on a project, refine it and only show customers something when it’s finished. Of course, that has advantages. When it’s presented to customers, it looks good.

But I like implementing things along the way. Developers can immediately see what they’re making in the context where it’ll be used. And customers can react.

Working directly on something people are looking at out there creates a particular atmosphere. Motivation grows because you can feel your work making a difference immediately. Also read Min vej som leder about my experiences of motivating people and moving the work forward.

Instead of only getting a little feedback from the boss, developers get messages from users. Some write that this crap doesn’t work. Others write that it’s brilliant. Both bring the work to life.

It gives it an edge. People work hard, and things move faster. There’s someone at the other end actually using what we’re making.

Amino’s new categories are a building site

On Amino right now, you can click on discussions and find little categories on things such as starting a business, marketing, sales and e-commerce. They aren’t finished. You’re looking at a beta.

It looks reasonably good, but the content isn’t particularly relevant everywhere yet. Among other things, our expert blogs need to be divided up and placed under the relevant categories.

That’s also why the expert blog area is a little messy right now. We’ve divided the blogs into groups, which means they aren’t all shown together as before. It’s part of the work underway.

Over the next few days, the new expert blogs will be added. There will still be gaps because I’m also finding RSS feeds and other relevant sources for the different subjects.

In the video, I ask for content suggestions on entrepreneurship, marketing, sales, administration and the other areas. The plan is to expand the subcategories over the next couple of months.

The building site is a little off the main street

That doesn’t mean I simply throw the unfinished project in every user’s face.

Right now, it’s tucked away a little inside Amino. You don’t see it immediately unless you actively visit the discussions and discover the categories. In other words, I’ve placed the building site a little off the main street.

Once it starts working and looks good, there’ll be a new home page presenting the subcategories properly. Only then will they get major attention.

I describe it as perhaps 95 per cent of users only seeing it then. The other five per cent have already been involved along the way. Those numbers illustrate the difference between the few who discover the building site and the large majority who encounter it later.

The first users may have helped find good RSS feeds and the right expert bloggers. They may also have spotted errors in different versions of Internet Explorer. Then we resolve problems through real use before giving the area a prominent position.

Users become part of development

It can also be exciting for customers to participate. They see something changing and think: What the hell is going on here? Something new is coming.

For me, one of the big advantages is getting help from the people using Amino. We aren’t only building on our own ideas and experiments.

And for the team, getting those reactions directly is motivating. It makes a difference when someone immediately notices what’s new and tells us how it works.

It doesn’t suit every business

Of course, the disadvantages are real too. Some customers think it’s a mess. It can seem unconsidered or random, and there can be errors.

So you need to consider whether that way of working suits your business. In the video, I joke that an oil platform probably isn’t the obvious place for a beta-style approach, and take a dig at BP in the historical situation here in 2010.

My own example is working with categories and content on Amino. Here, we can have a visible building site and benefit from some users joining in while we build.

A test environment isn’t the real world either

I easily get impatient with test environments where you’re working in a scenario no real customers use. You can test endlessly on yourselves, and when it’s all released, it’s still packed with errors.

So I ask: What’s the difference if problems arise anyway when customers get it?

My experience and opinion is that the work becomes more enjoyable, faster and cheaper when we can use direct contact along the way. I like that energy. Consider whether there’s an area of your business where you can let customers join you on the building site.