The simple thinking techniques that would’ve saved us $500,000

For engineering leaders to avoid shallow decisions.

Three years ago, I made a decision I was proud of.
We cut scope on a project we were working on to hit our OKRs. Quite a normal thing to do.
Another team relied on it for next quarter.
We talked it through with my manager, PM, my team, and the other team and just went for it.
And we delivered it on time! Big win.

Or so I thought.

What followed wasn’t just small cleanup we needed to do.
It was chaos.
Sales had promised the whole thing so we missed deals. What we delivered was unstable so we had to very quickly rewrite a big part of it.
We spent a whole quarter “fixing” it and our roadmap was out the window.

When we finally added it all up:
That "quick win" must have cost the company $500,000.
(We actually calculated it.)

Am I proud of this? No.

The execution was fine. Can’t blame the team at all.
My thinking and decision at the time… clearly wasn’t.

Why…

Like most engineering leaders, I made a decision based on what was directly in front of me.

That’s first-level thinking.
It looks like:
→ “What’s the fas…