97 Things Every Data Engineer Should Know

Chapter 54. Perfect Is the Enemy of Good

Bob Haffner

“Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien,” loosely translated as “Perfect is the enemy of good,” is a saying that most attribute to Voltaire. It’s a cautionary phrase about the perceived value of chasing perfection versus the reality of it. This phrase can apply to numerous domains, including data engineering.

Suggesting that perfection is not the goal often invites skepticism from data engineers. After all, developing data products requires precision and a detail-oriented approach. Further, most data engineers have been a part of rushed implementations only to have it come back to haunt them. Sprinkle in a natural aversion to risk, and there are multiple reasons people would challenge the notion that stopping short of perfection is a good idea.

However, this is not a plea for shortcuts. Instead, I’m advocating for delivering faster and implementing only the valuable features.

This concept of delivering faster is similar to Agile’s principle of shipping a minimum viable product (MVP). The value of quickly putting a product in the hands of a user cannot be overstated. For example, if your leaders require three metrics to run the business and you have only one completed, ship it. Driving the organization with some insight is always better than driving with none.

The only thing that might be worse than waiting to ship a viable product is ...