Iteration is the New Planning

As we start building more and more with AI, the temptation is going to be to plan more and more. Planning has always been a key part of every process, and thinking about how to plan for what we're doing has now become orders of magnitude easier. Sitting down with Claude in planning mode allows us to vet our opinions, come up with options, and understand what it is we're looking for before we even begin.

The difficulty we've run into is that no plan stands up to scrutiny. And, you can't get scrutiny until you've built something. Learning how to build in a way that provides feedback as quickly as possible has been the most important learning from books like "The Lean Startup", "The Term MVP", and many, many failed companies along the way.

"No plan survives first contact with the enemy" - Helmuth von Moltke

My son is considering building a video game with his friends and is stuck in planning mode. He is dreaming about the game that he could play and how it's going to work and whether or not he should build it. With all of the tools available to us at this point, I am trying my best to convince him to put fingers to keyboard and start building. The ability to learn has never been easier. The opportunity is never more valuable. With vibe coding and delivery so close, why not build?