Craft is the mindset that creates quality
What I talked about at Stripe Sessions:
Craft and Quality, and professional grade software at Linear
To me craft is mindset, and quality is the output.
If you think of anything that was built or created, and well done, it’s probably because they cared and they knew their craft. They designed it well. They chose the right materials. They built it well. It’s very easy to see when the person doesn't care. The work is sloppy. There are mistakes. It works and likely breaks down very quickly.
I think as a software industry the past decade we kind of forgot the craft. More stuff look like something where people didn’t care about the craft. We focused on building larger teams. We then made them run like factories churning out new things at a consistent pace. We validated “quality” by A/B testing and looking at metrics. Software today borderline works.
But we are supposed to be professionals and real companies. We’re selling products to people to buy. I think our responsibility is to deliver good products and quality products, not something that is sloppy.
Craft is the mindset that creates quality. But it’s not enough. You need to have the right skills and ideas. You need individuals who take their profession and craft seriously, then build teams that work this way together, and have a company that creates for it. Not only incentivizing with deadlines and metrics, but also caring if the experience is good enough.
Especially professional software should be “professional grade”. Professional grade tools and appliances are often more durable, more powerful, more precise and focused. Professional grade software should be that way too. It should be more or less bug free. It should be fast. It should meet the needs of the customers.
The pushback is always “well how do you measure quality”. There isn’t an easy answer or a single measurement, it’s going to be hard, but it is possible. You first have to believe in it, then encourage teams to do it, and the way you validate is by listening to what the market and customers say.
For us Linear it’s always been anecdotal. Linear is used daily in the companies and we hear a lot of feedback. They send notes how great the product or a new feature is. People tweet about it. CEO/founders sometimes tell me that they picked Linear because the product experience is so good that they use it to inspire their teams to do the same. VCs tell me how their portfolio companies rave about Linear and bring it up in the conversations.
As you listen to these signals, you start to see if the quality is there or not. But even when you hear the signals, you can’t stop. Great products require consistent, daily effort keeping the quality.
In short, people aren’t organically raving about your product, you probably don’t have a great product yet. Maybe you have just an OK product. If you have a great product, people will talk about it.
Great products create fans and champions. In my mind product quality is the ultimate moat. | 35 comments on LinkedIn
