When I look back over the last 25 years, in some ways what seems most precious is not what we have made but how we have made it and what we have learned as a consequence of that. I always think that there are two products at the end of a programme; there is the physical product or the service, the thing that you have managed to make, and then there is all that you have learned. The power of what you have learned enables you to do the next thing and it enables you to do the next thing better. — Jony Ive
Eric Ries touches on this in Lean Startup. Young companies produce “units of learning” not just a finished product.
How do you measure, improve, share, challenge, and value those learnings? Well, first we can value learning and put it in its proper place. “Yes, the feature failed, but we learned so much!”
Then we can prioritize learning as much as possible. This is where an MVP over a finished product comes in. An MVP is vehicle for accelerated learning.
Lastly, we can borrow from science to see how they standardize the capture and sharing of learning. Science has “models”, what do we have in product development?
In taking on new projects, I always try to document the stumbling blocks and the learnings. Then, when looking back on these notes, I find it’s often the learnings and stumbling blocks that have the lasting positive impact– even more so than the project itself.
I certainly can relate to this statement. Over the years I have built products. Some failed, some succeeded. I can say for a fact that lessons and knowledge learned building those failed products came very handy while building the successful ones.
One of the skill learned building my last plugin business is what I am utilizing in my current business.