Are you building a Maruti or a Ferrari?
Over the last 20 years, I have had an opportunity to work with 0 to 1 products (made popular by Peter Thiel ), 1-10, and 10-100 products. After talking to 100s of engineers, product managers, and founders; it's very clear to me that the engineering team's communication about the quality of delivery needs more communication.
I am proposing a Ferrari spectrum for communicating engineering design and product finish choices.
The Ferrari Spectrum
From my discussions with experts, it's clear that most engineers and engineering leaders are inherently aware of what I call the Maruti, Honda, Mercedes, Ferrari spectrum (Ferrari Spectrum for short).
Engineers in many teams choose to build many Marutis to find product-market fit quickly rather than spending time building a Mercedes.
The same engineers need to sometimes decide that they want to spend extra time and effort in building a more robust system (like Mercedes).
Effort Gap
Generally, it takes significantly more effort to make a Honda than a Maruti but there are plenty of instances where making the Honda equivalent of feature only takes a week extra.
Most founders I know would choose to spend a day or a week extra to get a Mercedes than being stuck with a Maruti.
Bandra Worli Sea Link Options
For example, When experts designed Bandra Worli Sea Link in Mumbai, they didn't just give one option to the government agencies. 4 lane, 6 lanes, 8 lane options along with different entry and exit points were evaluated and the corresponding cost, time, and benefits were presented.
The experts didn't go and make the biggest and the best (by some standards) Ferrari; they evaluated that option and communicated the pros and cons.
Communicate to come to the same understanding
Good engineering teams know when and how to decide on the Ferrari spectrum. Moreover, they communicate the options; efforts, and impact of each option with the product and founders to make a decision.
Over communicating what product and business teams are signing up by choosing a Maruti over a Honda is the key to win and engineering teams should anchor this success.
Before building your next feature/product; ask this question- Are you building a Maruti or a Ferrari?