Fix It in Design or Fight It in Production...Your Call

[#1]

Fixing a bug in prod can cost up to 100x more than fixing it during design.

Wild, right?

But it happens all the time.

Someone makes a tiny assumption in a planning session.

A Jira ticket doesn’t get enough context.

No one questions the edge cases.

And then… that “minor” detail shows up in prod.

Now it’s a full-blown issue, breaking user flows, burning dev hours, and dragging in the whole team for an emergency fix.

By the time it’s caught, it’s not just a bug. It’s a cost center.

Not just for engineering, but for support, for ops, for customer trust.

Planning isn’t just about timelines.

It’s your first and best chance to save your team from costly mistakes down the road.

So you better do it right.

The earlier you catch the gaps, the cheaper they are.

And the less your engineers want to scream into a pillow 😅

[Bill Sheboy]

Greetings, Community!

I recommend reviewing some original sources on defect resolution vs mitigation vs acceptance by work item phase to better understand the assumptions involved.  These include sources by (and not limited to):

• Steve McConnell
• Capers Jones
• Barry Boehm
• Mike Cohn
• Alistair Cockburn
• Gene Kim
• etc.

Kind regards,
Bill