Video: 3x Explore, Expand, Extract - Kent Beck

3x Explore, Expand, Extract - Kent Beck
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlJN6_4yI2A)

Question, to be asked early on.


small investment - big investment (---)
return on investment (red line)

waterfall resurgence
1) let's first do a market survey
2) let's do a business model refinement
3) let's then develop
4) QA


new product development with waterfall
large investment, small chance of payout


Question: what do you have to lose?
first question I need to ask, to decide how to operate


EXPLORE
until you find a growth loop
scratch the right spot
same thing as before, extreme result
not a rational process, or someone else would have done it already
absurd ideas, crazy idea
nobody else is stupid enough to try a bad idea
"how hard would it be to try it"
laughter is a good sign
trade-off: short term, throw away, hack
opposition: indifference
economy of scope: "how little work can I do in order to validate some question"
all about learning, creativity, coverage of the space


EXPAND scale
people care about the idea
barriers to growth: money, floor space, network bandwith, ...
each obstacle is existential: fail one, no princess
economy of risk: "capital is cheap, risk is really expensive"
throwing money at problems
different discipline: engineering, management, ...
all about finding the next thing that's going to kill you
barriers to growth
focused, short period of time
extra hours makes a difference
sitting in the same room makes a difference

EXTRACT value
long term kicks in
automated testing
KPI


exploration is binary (either 0 or massive)
expansion is one number that's gonna kill us
extraction has balanced scorecard

Can you run Exploration and Extract projects at the same time?
-> Facebook
more complicated as a manager

explorers
expanders floating around
extracter

expand projects trump everything:
explore: small change of high payoff
expand: high change of high payoff
extract: high change of small payoff
-> missing expand = missing the most valuable thing


Facebook everyone is measured on impact
specific numeric goals
works well in explore/expand
extract: smaller improvements, longer projects -> game the system
incentives are all about looking at the upsides, but nothing for looking at the potential downsides

extract: move from impact/outcome -> good decision making
"I'm not gonna add my feature, it's just gonna be too much"

---

question: What do I have to lose?

twitter is my platform to explore
"what do people want me to talk about?"
twitter -> engagement
20x

soundcloud to explore
record one after another
see what get's engagement

---

Explore mode:
don't analyse
figure out how to experiment

Expand mode:
figure out what the next barrier to growth is
address it
get ready for the next one

Extract mode:
how can I make a little improvement

---


Should you write tests?
That depends: do you have anything to lose?
No
Well, only write the tests that help you experiment quicker


No estimates
explore: estimates are waste
extraction: estimates are important data












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