I’ve published a new pair of articles on Ask Good Questions about a development approach that’s been working exceptionally well for us on a current project.
Instead of starting with the database, fields, screens, and everything the software might be able to do, we’ve turned the process around:
Promise → Output → Experience → Inputs → Data → Implementation
Decide what the customer is actually supposed to get first, then work backward and build only the machinery needed to produce it.
That’s especially useful with AI-assisted development. AI makes it incredibly cheap to add another field, another option, or another feature. It doesn’t make the resulting complexity free.
Design From the Outside In
The Guide looks at the broader methodology and why starting with the finished result can produce a much more coherent product.
Where Does That Field Show Up?
The accompanying Field Note comes down to one simple question whenever somebody proposes another piece of data or another feature:
Where does that field show up?
If nobody has a good answer, maybe that’s the answer.
Charles