Essay

12 Signs You're Working in a Feature Factory

John Cutler · Cutle.fish Free Beginner

Cutler names the exact trap your short answer warns about: shipping feature after feature while nobody measures whether any of them worked. The twelve signs are a mirror you can hold up to your own week. Sign one is the whole point: teams that never measure impact and treat shipping itself as the win.

  • Not measuring the impact of what you ship is the top warning sign
  • Success theater around launches replaces honest talk about impact
  • Constant feature churn without learning is the default failure mode
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It answers 2 questions

  1. How do I know when something we shipped is actually working versus just launched?
  2. What is a sane way to prioritise between fixing bugs, paying customer promises, and building the exciting new thing?

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