use the “shitty-shabby-shiny” spectrum
with great appreciation for Seth Godin, perhaps the high priest of shabby shipping
Famously successful organizations can mislead you with their shininess. Shine can be forged or financed. With enough cash, you can fake it or buy it.
Even if the shine is real, a lot of things don’t need to be shiny to be good - that is, to do their job.
If you try to make everything shiny, you’re probably wasting effort. You’re ignoring the 80/20 rule. Intentionally or not, you’re hedging bets where you should be all in.
I have found a “shitty-shabby-shiny” continuum to be a useful guide for teams deciding which solution to try. Of the three categories in the continuum, I’ve found “shabby” to be consistently underestimated. A lot of teams don’t even consider it part of the continuum. They only see shitty and shiny solutions. Alas!
Most of the time, you want to avoid a shitty solution. Shitty solutions are like super thin toilet paper.
They barely get the job done and even if they do, it’s unpleasant.
You may waste resources (use a lot of toilet paper) compensating for their weakness. It’s low quality work that doesn’t take the user into account.
They may be hard to improve upon without starting over entirely.
Shabby solutions, by contrast, are often just right and quite underestimated. They can become the signature of a collaborative, kickass culture. Shabby solutions
do the job they’re “hired” for - they serve their purpose
can be improved upon
are built with two intentions: to serve their purpose now and to serve as a starting point for future improvement. When you make this kind of solution, you’re not pretending it’s perfect; you are prepared to perfect it, based on feedback.
Shiny solutions, the last category, are
free of visible mistakes and smooth to the touch. They’ve been sanded, dusted, and polished.
stylized - diligent attention has been paid to the aesthetic of the thing
usually more expensive than either of the other categories
often needed when you’re trafficking in a scarce and precious resource, when something is going to be permanent, when you’re in front of an unusually large or elite audience, or when the surrounding culture requires it (think weddings vs family dinner).
A couple of truths about shabby solutions that are easy to forget:
a shabby solution is way better than nothing.
a shabby solution is also way better than talk about solutions.
Existence precedes flourishing. To be good, a thing’s gotta be in the first place. Ship a crummy version. Earnestly seek feedback on it. Act on that feedback just as earnestly.
A culture of shabby shipping has many benefits. Embracing shabbiness and growth can cut (if not cure) imposter syndrome, limit bureaucratic sloth and organizational debt, and promote innovation. You create, with the near costless input of your permission, a way for people to grow, develop, and find a voice.
You think we should be doing things a different way? Great. Build a prototype of that way. You want our honor and esteem? Don’t opine - operate. Don’t b*tch - build. (These last zingers said with enthusiasm, not snark.) We’ll be here to acknowledge the effort and substance of your offering and - critically - prompt you to make it better.
You don’t have to be an expert; it doesn’t have to look good. We won’t slam your idea or doubt your chops because the first draft has coffee stains and typos. On this team, we don’t find geniuses; we build generators.
Shabby shipping invites your people to a world of rapid improvement - an exciting, humble, humane world. Without it, you can get stuck in a world of instant perfection - an imaginary, daunting, and unforgiving world. One where stuff doesn’t get made and doesn’t get better.
-Eric
