The Cult of the Imperfect

I visited a second world war Radar station over the weekend in Bawdsey, Suffolk and looking through the exhibitions came across a fascinating historical figure, Sir Robert Watson Watt. Watson Watt was a pioneer of Radar between 1937 and 1939 and was instrumental in creating the system to detect airplanes that many say contributed to the Royal Air Force’s 1940 victory at the Battle of Britain.

Watson Watt had an interesting philosophy to innovation, he said “Always strive to give the military the third best because the best is impossible and second best is always too late.” This philosophy has come to be known as the Cult of the Imperfect, it says perfectionism is undesirable because the pursuit of it squeezes out resources needed to achieve other goals. Applying this principle, to provide maximum value strive to create something which is good enough to be useful, rather than something which is perfect. For Watson Watt this meant a system of imperfect but effective radar was in place at the start of the second world war.

This has resonance today in software development and is reflected in the concept of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) which requires a product to be built with just enough features to satisfy early customers and provide feedback for future product development. MVP has purposes such as:

• Be able to test a product hypothesis with minimal resources
• Reduce wasted engineering hours
• Get the product to early customers as soon as possible

There is a direct parallel between Watson Watts philosophy and MVP, even though they come from different people at different times. So often in life the principles which lead to success surface in in different ways with the same underlying truth.

So remember, whenever someone insists they need a solution to a highly complex problem very quickly tell them about the Cult of the Imperfect. And if you find yourself in Bawdsey with a spare hour to kill and want to see something inspirational visit https://www.bawdseyradar.org.uk