Participants:
- Craig Nishizaki, Head of Business @UpTop
- Michael Woo, Head of Design @UpTop
Length: 1m 37s
Craig and Michael discuss the concept of “slowing down to speed up,” the practice of intentionally pausing to align on vision, strategy, and requirements in order to accelerate product development and improve outcomes. This approach emphasizes the value of thoughtful planning—ensuring teams are aligned, goals are clearly defined, and resources are in place—before rushing into execution. By investing time upfront, teams can avoid costly missteps, reduce rework, and ultimately deliver higher-quality products with greater efficiency.
Transcript:
Michael Woo:
Do you think one could manage the tension between the speed and quality of product development?
Craig Nishizaki:
I do, but I think that to do that, everyone needs to agree that sometimes you have to slow down to speed up. And what I mean is take a step back to do the proper planning that will allow you to create velocity. And that is making sure everyone’s aligned on the product vision, confirming the expectations and requirements for the MVP and the future releases in the roadmap, confirming that funding is allocated and approved for the initiative; and being very clear and transparent about that so everyone knows what they have to work with.
If you keep running forward fast without the proper planning, you’re going to risk building a product that doesn’t meet the mark for the end users, doesn’t scale technically brakes, has defects, has security issues, all these things that you don’t want. And just know that when you make the decision to slow down, it’s cheaper and faster to course correct before any code is written. So if you’re at the point where you’re like, Hey, I’m going to have to make a tough call and tell the CEO, we need to slow down to speed up, remind them that it’s cheaper and faster to course correct before any code’s written.
Michael Woo:
I love that phrase, slow down to speed up. It’s one of my favorites. Because it is so true.
For more information, watch the entire podcast which includes the clip above.
