Learning While Shipping

Learning While Shipping

The goal isn't to choose between learning and shipping. It's to do both—to learn through shipping and ship while learning.

Embedded Discovery

Discovery doesn't have to be a separate phase. It can be embedded in delivery:

- Ship small, measure impact, adjust

- Treat early releases as experiments

- Build in feedback loops

- Make learning visible as part of progress

This reframes shipping not as the end of learning but as a form of learning.

What Embedded Learning Requires

To learn while shipping:

Instrumentation: You can measure what matters, not just what's easy. Key questions are answerable from data.

Feedback channels: Users can tell you what's working. You hear from customers, not just stakeholders.

Adjustment capacity: The team can change course. Roadmaps have slack for response to learning.

Learning culture: Discoveries change plans. Admitting "we were wrong" is valued, not punished.

Learning Rhythms

Establish rhythms for integrating learning:

- Weekly: What did we learn? What does it change?

- Per release: Did this work? What should we do differently?

- Quarterly: What do we now know that we didn't?

These don't have to be heavy. They just have to happen.

The Constraint of Time

There's never enough time for perfect learning before shipping. This is a feature, not a bug.

Constraints force choices:

- What do we most need to learn before committing?

- What can we learn by shipping?

- What's the cost of being wrong?

- What would change our direction?

Not all questions need answering before action. The skill is knowing which ones do.

Minimum Viable Learning

Just as there's a minimum viable product, there's minimum viable learning:

- What's the smallest thing we could learn that would change our approach?

- What's the fastest way to learn it?

- What decision does this learning enable?

This keeps discovery focused and actionable.