Software and automation

Before any code

Three things get settled: what the system must do, how you can see that it does it, and what is out of scope. The third is the most important and almost nobody writes it down, and it is the one that makes a project end rather than continue.

How it proceeds

In deliverable pieces. Each piece works on its own, goes into the hands of whoever will use it, and the next one takes account of what the last one taught. An MVP is not a worse version of the product: it is the part worth trying before building the rest.

What the client is left holding

The system, tests that can be re-run with the commands to do it, and the documentation of what happens when something goes wrong. A system that cannot be verified is a system somebody will verify by hand for ever.