How to Balance Speed and Quality in Technology

How I Balance Speed and Quality as a Program Manager at Amazon Speed and quality aren’t opposites—they’re complements. Early in my career, I thought moving fast meant sacrificing quality. Then I noticed how a senior PM delivered projects quickly without compromising on standards by using clear frameworks and decision-making principles. That realization changed my approach entirely. Here’s how I balance speed and quality effectively: 1️⃣ Define ‘Good Enough’ Early I set clear quality thresholds before starting a project—what ‘good enough’ looks like and what we’re willing to trade off to meet deadlines. This clarity prevents scope creep and maintains quality standards. 2️⃣ Build in Quality Gates I establish quality checkpoints at critical milestones, not just at the end of the project. These gates allow us to catch issues early and course-correct without impacting the timeline significantly. 3️⃣ Iterate, Don’t Perfect I focus on delivering MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) and iterating based on feedback rather than aiming for perfection from the start. This approach has cut delivery times by 20% on average while still meeting quality benchmarks. Balancing speed and quality isn’t about choosing one over the other—it’s about finding the right blend. If you’re struggling to balance both, try focusing less on perfection and more on progress. How do you balance speed and quality? #ProjectManagement #SpeedVsQuality #Leadership #Amazon

"Should we move fast or build it right?" 🤔 This might be the most common debate in product development. But it's the wrong question. The real question isn't whether to prioritize speed or quality — it's how to optimize for continuous value delivery to the customer and the business. And that means keeping both in balance: ⚡️ Speed isn't just about getting to market quickly: ↳ Your customers start getting value sooner, which means faster revenue generation and business impact ↳ You accelerate your learning cycles, enabling faster iterations and a better product ↳ You maintain competitive advantage by responding to market needs more rapidly ↳ The faster you ship, the more opportunities you have to course-correct based on real data 🎯 Quality isn't just about preventing bugs: ↳ You build and maintain customer trust and brand reputation through reliable, polished experiences ↳ Your foundation stays solid as you scale, preventing costly rebuilds ↳ Teams can iterate faster when working with well-structured code ↳ You avoid the compounding technical debt that slows future development Here's what teams should be focused on to keep them optimized: 1️⃣ Front-load research and planning Code is the most expensive part of product development. Invest time upfront in research and validation to ensure you're building the right thing before writing a single line of code. 2️⃣ Build reusable foundations Create robust, reusable components — from design systems to analytics frameworks. This initial investment pays dividends in both speed and quality for future development. Make the expensive parts easy. 3️⃣ Think in evolution, not versions Map out potential evolution paths. Consider scale, learnings, and iteration scenarios. Build with change in mind, but don't over-engineer for scenarios that may never materialize. 4️⃣ Define meaningful quality bars Quality isn't binary. Define what "good enough" means for each release phase. Your v1 quality bar should enable clear signals about product-market fit while maintaining customer trust. 5️⃣ Optimize for learning Speed and quality should serve your learning goals. Structure releases to maximize learning while maintaining standards that keep customers happy and engaged. The best product teams don't see speed and quality as competitors — they see them as complementary forces that, when balanced properly, drive better outcomes for everyone. #productmanagement #engineering #leadership #strategy ♻️ If you found this useful and think others might as well, please repost for reach!

SPEED SPEED SPEED | When you hear complaints about technology, cybersecurity, policy, you name it, within the Department of Defense (or any federal agency or legacy business), what's the first thing people say? "We need speed! Make it faster! It's too slow!" And it's totally true... But it also misconstrues progress as purely a function of speed. Let's math it out. At a basic Pokémon level, the oversimplified proclamation is that progress (P) is solely the result of speed (S) over time (t), which can be expressed as: P(t)=S x t Where S is a constant representing the rate of work or change, and t is time. But in reality, this equation (or mindset) completely ignores readiness and quality, which are HUGE modifiers in how well progress actually manifests... So, if we want a more accurate equation for progress, it should look more like this: P(t)=S x R(t) x Q(t) x t Where R(t) is readiness as a function of time (how prepared the system is to handle the speed of change), and Q(t) is quality as a function of time (the effectiveness or usefulness of the output). The takeaway? Progress isn’t just about moving fast, it’s also about moving well. If readiness R(t) improves over time, progress accelerates. On the other hand, if quality Q(t) declines, progress slows down, or even reverses! Therefore, to maximize progress, we must optimize the combination of speed, readiness, and quality. If either readiness or quality deteriorates, no matter how fast we go, progress stalls. P.S. You can even do the mathematical integral sum if you please to show when either R(t) or Q(t) approaches zero, P(t) is significantly reduced, or rendered null. In plain English? Speed alone does not drive sustainable progress. You need to move in the right way with solutions that are ready for the task and effective when applied, too. Ignore them, and progress isn’t progress at all—work is just "work for the sake of work." Math.

Velocity wins headlines. Reliability wins customers. When one tool can crank out a billion accepted lines of code a day, the bottleneck shifts from creation to confidence. Fast is no longer enough. The question is whether you can trust what ships. My playbook for keeping quality ahead of velocity: 1. Automate the obvious. Let AI handle scaffolding, linting, boilerplate. 2. Ruthlessly delete. Remove any redundant code. Simplify. 3. Freeze best practice into reusable modules. Publish a churn formula once, reuse it everywhere, and metric drift dies before it starts. 4. Codify your contribution standards. Help AI ship code you’ll actually accept by writing the kind of guidelines you’d expect from a great hire. 5. Make failures loud and early. Good observability is cheaper than perfect code. Scale isn’t scary if trust scales with it. Nail that balance, and a billion lines a day becomes an advantage, not a liability.

"Slow Down to Speed Up" – Balancing Velocity and Quality in Experimentation I’m working on a program with some QA/QC issues right now. We’ve been pushing velocity hard—really focusing on getting experiments out fast. But now it’s time to step back and reset. This happens, and it should be expected. When you’re scaling an experimentation program, it’s easy to fall into the velocity trap: rushing to ship more tests without maintaining the foundation that makes them meaningful and reliable. But here’s the thing—scaling doesn’t mean choosing between velocity and quality. It means building a system that lets you do both. Here’s how I’m stepping back to speed up: >> Refining Processes Without Creating Bottlenecks: Processes should enable speed, not slow it down. We're revisiting our workflows to ensure they support velocity while maintaining rigor—standardized, yet flexible. >> Prioritizing High-Impact Testing: Not all experiments are worth the rush. By tying experiments to KPIs and business goals, we’re focusing our resources on what truly matters, not just what’s easy to test. >> Fixing Gaps in Skills and Knowledge: When teams are pushed too hard, QA issues pop up. Auditing capabilities and addressing weak spots—whether through training, hiring, or collaboration—is key to avoiding slowdowns later. >> Rethinking Rituals to Build Collaboration: Velocity often isolates teams into silos which breeds mis-alignment. Regular reviews, cross-team standups, and shared insights can keep the momentum strong while ensuring consistency across the program. >> Optimizing Tools with XOS: An Experimentation Operating System (XOS) is helping us integrate tools, automate repetitive tasks, and give teams the resources they need to move fast without cutting corners. #systemsthinking Sometimes, scaling means pushing hard. Other times, it’s about resetting the foundation so you can move even faster later. Experimentation is a learning process—for the teams running it just as much as for the business. If you’ve ever hit QA bumps while scaling velocity, know you’re not alone. This is part of the process. What’s your approach when you need to “slow down to speed up”? Let’s share ideas below! 👇

Just ship it! Test in production.... It'll be ok! Shipping secure software at high velocity is a challenge that many smaller, fast-paced, tech-forward companies face. When you're building and deploying your own software in-house, every day counts, and often, the time between development and release can feel like it's shrinking. In my experience working in these environments, balancing speed and security requires a more dynamic approach that often ends up with things happening in parallel. One key area where I've seen significant success is through the use of automated security testing within the Continuous Integration and Continuous Development (CICD) pipelines. Essentially, this means that every time developers push new code, security checks are built right into the process, running automatically. This gives a baseline level of confidence that the code is free from known issues before it even reaches production. Automated tools can scan for common vulnerabilities, ensuring that security testing isn’t an afterthought but an integral part of the development lifecycle. This approach can identify and resolve potential problems early on, while still moving quickly. Another great tool in the arsenal is the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM). Think of it like an ingredient list for the software. In fast-paced environments, it's common to reuse code, pull in external libraries, or leverage open-source solutions to speed up development. While this helps accelerate delivery, it can also introduces risks. The SBOM helps track all the components that go into software, so teams know exactly what they’re working with. If a vulnerability is discovered in an external library, teams can quickly identify whether they’re using that component and take action before it becomes a problem. Finally, access control and code integrity monitoring play a vital role in ensuring that code is not just shipping fast, but shipping securely. Not every developer should have access to every piece of code, and this isn’t just about preventing malicious behavior—it's about protecting the integrity of the system. Segregation of duties between teams allows us to set appropriate guardrails, limiting access where necessary and ensuring that changes are reviewed by the right people before being merged. Having checks and balances in place keeps the code clean and reduces the risk of unauthorized changes making their way into production. What I’ve learned over the years is that shipping secure software at high speed requires security to be baked into the process, not bolted on at the end (says every security person ever). With automated testing, clear visibility into what goes into your software, and a structured approach to access control, you can maintain the velocity of your team while still keeping security front and center. #founders #startup #devops #cicd #sbom #iam #cybersecurity #security #ciso

Balancing Speed and Quality in Product Building In product management, there’s always pressure to move fast—but speed without quality can lead to disaster. So, how do you strike the right balance? If you ship too fast, you risk: ❌ Bugs that frustrate users ❌ Poor UX that leads to churn ❌ A product that doesn’t solve real problems If you move too slow, you risk: ❌ Losing market opportunities ❌ Falling behind competitors ❌ Wasting resources on over-polishing 💡 How to balance speed and quality: 1️⃣ Prioritize ruthlessly – Focus on what truly matters, not on perfection. 2️⃣ Use MVPs & Iteration – Launch, learn, and improve rather than over-building. 3️⃣ Automate testing – Catch issues early without slowing down development. 4️⃣ Gather early user feedback – Validate before investing too much time. 5️⃣ Set clear quality standards – Define what “good enough” looks like. The key? Build fast, but don’t break trust. Speed is valuable, but a product that actually works is what wins in the long run. How do you balance speed and quality in your product development process? Let’s discuss below PS: A great product isn’t just built fast—it’s built right. #productmanagement #productdevelopment #mvp #agile #buildbetter

*Making the tradeoff between speed and quality* “We need to ship faster,” I said to my team. “We know what we need to build, and the best thing we can do for our customers is get it into their hands faster.” They looked back skeptically. “If we ship faster, how can we make sure that we’re building to our quality standard? Are you asking us to cut corners?” This exact conversation has happened not just once, but on nearly every team I’ve been on. And I’ve been on both sides of it! So how much time should I spend on improving quality v. focusing on velocity of shipping? This is a never-ending tradeoff. Here are some principles that give me a way to talk about it: 1. State that we won’t ship a bad product. I find even saying that out loud makes people breathe a sigh of relief. Otherwise the decision seems abstract and binary — as if by focusing on speed, we have to throw quality out entirely. But what’s the point of shipping a bad product? It just won’t work for customers, and we won’t learn from it. 2. Quality mirrors customer priorities.  Sometimes the things that we think of as “quality” are important, but aren’t what the customer would prioritize. When working on business tools, for instance, I had a long list of UI updates that would make me personally really happy. But what our customers wanted most were more sales — and they’d rather that we spend more of our time building new products to help them find new customers rather than updating the UI. So that’s what we did — and our customers loved it. 3. The intent is to shorten the entire process, not cut corners. A major concern I’ve heard is, is “does this mean I won’t have time to do my job well?” No. Instead, we’re trying to streamline the whole process from “having an idea” to “shipping a validated, viable product.” That means that the best way to speed things up isn’t normally “shorten design exploration” or “skip testing” but instead “let’s break this idea into shorter milestones” or “let’s make it easier to validate this opportunity size”.  4. We’ll empower teams to make intentional tradeoffs. The goal is not to hold to an arbitrary up-front rule across the board. Instead, it’s for each team to have an intentional conversation about the particular decision they’re making right now. How can we explicitly balance what the customer wants, the risks of this direction, and whether we’re going to get high fidelity learnings from this version of the product? All that adds up to shipping something we can be proud of. These principles never fully solve the question of how to balance speed and quality, or spit out a formula for exactly what we should be doing. But I’ve found them useful for turning an emotional or philosophical debate into a tactical team discussion, and for giving me some starting principles on how to deliver value faster to our customers. (This is part of an ongoing series about product, leadership, and scaling! For regular updates, subscribe to amivora.substack.com)

I love this model for SPEED vs QUALITY Here's how to use it: 1️⃣ Understand the Three Product Types Every product initiative falls into one of three categories: - Experiment: Learning how to solve a customer problem (empty square - nothing committed yet) - Feature: Actually solving a customer problem (filled square - shipping real value) - Platform: Enabling more features to be built (foundation blocks - multiplying future impact) Teams waste energy debating quality standards without first agreeing on what type of product they're building. 2️⃣ Match Your Trade-offs to Your Type Each product type requires different trade-offs: - Experiments: Speed >> Quality (move fast, learn cheap) - Features: Speed = Quality (balanced approach) - Platforms: Speed << Quality (get it right the first time) Common mistake: Over-engineering experiments or under-engineering platforms. Both kill velocity. 3️⃣ Set Clear Expectations by Type For Experiments: - Ship in days, not weeks - Use manual processes and duct tape - Success = validated learning, not polish For Features: - Balance craft with delivery speed - Build for current scale, not imagined future - Success = customer problem solved sustainably For Platforms: - Get abstractions right - Over-invest in documentation - Success = other teams building faster 4️⃣ Use This Framework in Practice In planning: Start with "Is this an experiment, feature, or platform?" In reviews: - Experiments: "What are we learning?" - Features: "Does this solve the problem?" - Platforms: "What does this enable?" 5️⃣ Know When to Shift Types Natural progression: - Experiment → Feature (found product-market fit) - Feature → Platform (multiple teams need it) Watch for: - Experiments that never graduate - Features that skip experimentation - Platforms with no consumers ––– By categorizing work as experiment, feature, or platform, you transform debates into aligned execution. The question shifts from "How good should this be?" to "What are we actually building?" Remember: There's no universal right answer to speed vs quality. Only the right answer for this product type, at this time, for this goal.

In an ideal world, we’d get instant feedback on software quality the moment a line of code is written (by AI or humans) (we’re working hard to build that world, but in the meantime); how do we BALANCE speed to market with the right level of testing? Here are 6 tips to approach it: 1 - Assess your risk tolerance: Risk and user patience are variable. A fintech app handling transactions can’t afford the same level of defects as a social app with high engagement and few alternatives. Align your testing strategy with the actual cost of failure. 2 - Define your “critical path”: Not all features are created equal. Identify the workflows that impact revenue, security, or retention the most; these deserve the highest testing rigor. 3 - Automate what matters: Automated tests provide confidence without slowing you down. Prioritize unit and integration tests for core functionality and use end-to-end tests strategically. 4 - Leverage environment tiers: Move fast in lower environments but enforce stability in staging and production. 5 - Shift Left: Catching defects earlier saves time and cost. Embed testing at the pull request, commit, and review stages to reduce late-stage surprises. 6 - Timebox your testing: Not every feature needs exhaustive QA. Set clear limits based on risk, business impact, and development speed to avoid getting stuck in endless validation cycles. The goal is to move FAST WITHOUT shipping avoidable FIRES. Prioritization, intelligent automation, and risk-based decision-making will help you release with confidence (until we reach a future where testing is instant and invisible). Any other tips?