Intense Minimalism

Something which is functional but lacking polish trumps something that is extremely polished but doesn't do much. Putting it another way, which Minimum Viable Date would you choose? 1. Cute and sociable. Smells nice, good conversationalist. Date involves picking up two packages of cup-a-soup from 7-11 and sitting on the curb outside. 2. Heroin addicted, hasn't showered in a week. Withdrawn from conversation. Date involves dinner and wine at a Michelin- starred restaurant followed by a limo picking you up and taking you to a sold-out concert where you're in the front row and you have backstage passes after. Make sure you understand which is the feature and which is the polish. The feature in the above two examples is the person. That's what the date is really about. The polish is where you go and what you do with the person. This is what Apple got wrong with their maps app. Its appearance is what you'd expect from Apple. It's really polished and likely went through their rigorous pixel-perfect prototyping [0]. But the underlying feature that people expect is accurate mapping. Having a map which is never wrong but looks like an Etch-a-Sketch would be preferable to a highly polished map which gets you stranded in the Australian Outback. That said, you want to find the right balance. If you're providing the app to existing customers, they're probably looking for the functionality and can deal with a lack of polish. If you're using the app…

"If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." Refs: https://intenseminimalism.com/2010/if-i-had-more-time-i-would-have-wri…

In my experience, the issue is not presentations actually. Whatever can be presented using documents can be presented using slides too. The real challenge is that slides present much less word-count space to deliver the right message, and most authors fail to do that right. A phrase commonly attributed to Blaise Pascal comes to mind [1]. That presentations being synchronous vs. everyone reading their own pace is not the key issue. Sharing the slides in print for the meetings can solve that. At one employment I was in, we were using PowerPoint even more effectively than we use Word. [1] https://intenseminimalism.com/2010/if-i-had-more-time-i-would-have-wri…

>I don't think a single compile cycle per half day Hm... I read this quite differently than you do. Not compile cycles, but actual test-driven product iterations. Do you have more solid sources than I do? https://intenseminimalism.com/2012/a-brief-history-of-agile-methods/ https://brettwgreen.com/2014/01/25/rockets-before-rovers/

Pixar use a technique called "plussing"[1] where any critique given is framed as a positive constructive addition. Eg you accept something for what it is and suggest a way to improve it rather than saying it's bad or wrong. I've tried to use it, and continue to try, but it's hard work. When I manage to do it properly it works very well. [1] https://intenseminimalism.com/2015/pixars-plussing-technique-of-giving…

Reminds me of this incredible chart / graph which you can use to apply to a lot of situations. I actively refer to this and show it to teams constantly. The gist of it is that you require many skills and capabilities to create alignment. Without that, you have different outcomes which we may initially experience as frustration / failure. https://intenseminimalism.com/2015/a-framework-for-thinking-about-syst…

Yes. Yes. And I can say that this happens in every field. Check this small interview to Erik Spiekermann about typography: http://intenseminimalism.com/2011/everybody-is-influenced-by-somebody-…