In the vein of learning more from failure than success, a disastrous demo will teach you more than a triumphant one.  Don’t get me wrong, trium

Demos Disasters Teach You More Than Triumphs

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2024-11-13 18:00:04

In the vein of learning more from failure than success, a disastrous demo will teach you more than a triumphant one.  Don’t get me wrong, triumphant demos are awesome!  Triumph as much as possible and then get back to work.  

Disasters teach you, or your stakeholders, that something is wrong.  Remember, the purpose of a demo is feedback, and the feedback may be that you are on the wrong path.

As a developer, you may be doing a great job at building the wrong thing.  You may discover that you don’t understand what you are building or why.  The sooner you learn that you are off track, the sooner, and cheaper you can get on the right track.

I’ve walked into a dozen demos expecting triumph and congratulations only to hear “now that I’ve seen it, this isn’t going to work.”

You can build what your stakeholder asked for, understand everything about the problem, and still deliver something that won’t solve the problem.  

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