The Tradeoff Myth

"We don't have time for quality." This sentence is repeated daily in engineering. Let's examine whether it's actually true.

The standard story goes:

- We can have quality OR speed

- Business needs speed

- Therefore quality must suffer

- When things break, it was the necessary cost

This framing makes quality a luxury—something we'd do if we had more time.

The tradeoff myth treats quality and speed as opposites on a single axis. But:

- Poor quality slows you down (bugs, rework, investigation)

- The "fast" path often costs more time than it saves

- Quality work can be done efficiently; sloppy work can take forever

Speed vs. quality isn't a tradeoff—it's an oversimplification.

When we say "speed vs. quality," we usually mean something more specific:

- Short-term speed vs. long-term speed

- This feature vs. sustainable architecture

- Shipping now vs. investigation time

- Visible progress vs. invisible investment

These are real tradeoffs. But they're not "quality vs. speed."

Instead of "quality vs. speed," ask:

- What's the real constraint? Time? Budget? Capability?

- What are we actually trading? Be specific about costs and benefits.

- Who bears the cost? The team? Future developers? Users?

- What's the compounding effect? How does this decision affect future decisions?

This reframing makes the actual tradeoff visible.

Sometimes speed genuinely matters:

- Competitive windows

- Regulatory deadlines

- Critical incidents

- Proof of concept needs

In these cases, the tradeoff might be worth it—but name what you're trading, and plan for how you'll address the debt.

The highest-performing teams don't see quality as a luxury. They see it as an investment:

- Testing saves debugging time

- Clean code saves future confusion

- Good architecture saves rework

- Documentation saves onboarding time

This investment thinking reframes "we don't have time for quality" as "we can't afford to skip quality."

•"Quality vs. speed" is usually an oversimplification
•Poor quality often costs more time than it saves
•The real tradeoffs are more specific: short-term vs. long-term, visible vs. invisible
•Quality is an investment, not a luxury