There is something heroic about being a fire fighter, but you can’t build a whole software company out of those who get a kick out of reacting to emergency situations.
Fire-fighting is all about preserving what is burning down. It’s about keeping your platform alive when things are in trouble. It’s about keeping the lights on for those who are already paying for your services.
While it’s sometimes necessary to be in this mode – it’s exhausting, demoralising and at the same time you’re not focussing on what your customers want next.
What about the new customer? Where do they fit in?
Likewise it’s easy to get lulled into thinking that delivering features is the ultimate goal for a software delivery pipeline. A feature sounds like something you can put in a box and get a developer and a UX person to deliver in no-time.
The processes that we put in place inherently shape the software product that we deliver.
Instead of focus on process, remind ourselves of the core purpose of our existence as a company and remove as much unnecessary distraction as we can to keep our attention.
Don’t think in features, think about customer experience instead. Don’t think about fire-fighting, think about what you need to do to eliminate fire-fighting.