Ever hear someone say they are concerned with the speed of their product development process? Every time I do, I can’t help but cringe a little.
I’m all for Build Fast & Iterate Quickly. Any technology company not moving at lightning speed will stagnant like a still shark. By all means, go fast.
Product development speed isn’t the right trait, however. It’s product development velocity. For the average person, there is a subtle difference between the two terms. But to an engineer, it is an important difference. Here’s a quick recap of the definitions:
- Speed is a scalar quantity. It is the rate of change of an object’s position.
- Velocity is a vector quantity. It is the rate of change of an object’s displacement.
(Confused? That’s okay. Watch the Khan Academy’s Introduction to motion for a quick refresher of high school physics. No one will know you did and you’ll feel all the smarter for it. hehe.)
Or, to put it into plain English: velocity is speed with a direction. If you take two steps forward at 2 mph, then two steps back at 2 mph, your speed is “2 mph.” But since you haven’t changed your location, your velocity is 0 mph. If you took four steps east at the same speed, your velocity would be “2 mph east.”
This is why product development velocity is more important. Your direction matters. You should be moving forward. Or at least away from where you currently are. If you’re moving quickly, but in circles, that’s not progress. That’s a waste of time.
It’s fine to move forward, to the left, or to the right. As a business, the goal is to move somewhere new. Every time you cover new ground, you have an opportunity to learn something you didn’t know before, to capture invaluable data. You need to uncover the Fog of War of your market and understand your landscape. You can only do that by moving in some new direction.
In other words, Build Fast, Iterate Quickly, and Move Forward.
Photo by: Mauropm
