STEP 06 · SEVEN STEPS
Ship in small slices
20 April 202611 min read
The point of shipping isn't done — it's learning. A small slice, shipped, is almost always worth more than a large slice, considered.
The difference between teams that ship and teams that talk about shipping is rarely velocity — it's the unit of work they're willing to call done. Small, real slices beat big, polished slices almost every time.
What a slice looks like
- Vertical: touches every layer from data to pixel, not a single layer across the whole app.
- Testable: you know in advance what signal would tell you it worked.
- Reversible: you could pull it back on Monday without a cleanup project.
Where teams get this wrong
The most common failure isn't under-scoping — it's pretending a slice is vertical when it's actually a horizontal layer disguised as a feature. "We built the data model this sprint" is not a slice. "One user completed the flow end-to-end" is.