I’ve linked to this blog before and I’m doing it again, because it’s terrific. Required reading for anyone interested in technology and software. Jeff Atwood has an excellent post on iteration quality vs. speed which he illustrates using the superior kill ratio of the F-86 vs. the Mig-15 in dogfights. I’m also a closet aircraft geek which may help explain why I liked this post so much.

Boyd decided that the primary determinant to winning dogfights was not observing, orienting, planning, or acting better. The primary determinant to winning dogfights was observing, orienting, planning, and acting faster. In other words, how quickly one could iterate. Speed of iteration, Boyd suggested, beats quality of iteration.

This insight has been borne out in our experience at Judy’s Book. The more you invest in enabling yourself to change faster, the better you’ll ultimately perform. Site design changes, incentive system tweaks, all have consequences that can only be known through measurement. Often, what happens is not exactly what you want and the quicker you can respond, the quicker you’ll end up in a better place.