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Comment by adrianhoward | Hacker News Reader

You wouldn't see them on my board either - for a few reasons (hopefully none of them scary :-)

* We view design as an ongoing and continual process - not a phase. Having a "software design phase" just wouldn't make sense for us since it basically covers the whole cycle from when the idea comes out to when it hits the streets.

* We generally pair on development where at all possible, and when we are pairing we don't find that we get a great deal of additional value out of code reviews on top.

* When we don't pair for whatever reason we do code reviews, but do them on a regular cadence rather than as a phase (say every Wednesday afternoon). A bunch of stuff fits in this kind of pattern. We are sure to talk to users every couple of weeks. We do some usability testing every couple of weeks. It's not related to how stories flow so it's not on the board.

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The reason to have a dedicated "software design phase" is to encourage invention of "nobody can do it but us" - secret sauces which can make you (or your company) super rich (i.e., algorithms in Oracle Database, Google's algorithms, etc.). These things cannot be invented as "ongoing and continual process".

I know that my examples are based on system software development, but I have no reason to believe they cannot be applied also for web development.

That's more R&D than part of the day-to-day engineering process, though.

Anything that's going to be secret sauce is going to need a lot of prototyping and experimentation, and might not even yield usable results. Oftentimes, it isn't even possible to make an estimate as to the complexity of what it is you are building -- all you can do is timebox it.

Mixing that in with normal day-to-day development feels, to my brain, like mixing concerns.

Once those prototypes and experiments start to produce tangible benefits, then incorporating them just becomes another story in the sprint.

There are two kinds of innovations: "initial" and "incremental" innovation. What you just described is "initial" innovation (some people also call it "radical innovation"). And the process you described, I think it is called "skunk work" (prototypes and experiments) which is only one way to achieve "initial" innovation.

I think that "incremental" innovations are very important for companies and sometimes a "incremental" innovation can end up being a "radical" innovation.

That doesn't match my experience - and I'm not sure I understand the logic. Why would these algorithms be impossible to development during an incremental process?

From my perspective having a continual software design process, rather than a phased approach, gives me more opportunities for innovative design - not less. We end up doing more software design work that way, since we have the opportunity to add "secret sauce" all of the time - rather than just in some one-off section.

I find I get more innovation out of teams that develop incrementally. That is, to quite a large extent, why we develop that way.

"We view design as an ongoing and continual process - not a phase." - Boom! Wish I could do more than just one vote up.

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