Sep 21, 2023

The permission to be wrong

One of the core principles guiding our product decisions at Tines is enabling builders to create amazing things with the platform. In the early days, the product was a little unforgiving. But over time, with features like copy/paste, undo/redo, version history and change management, we're building out a safety net that aids exploration and experimentation. As you progress, things you build in the product will inevitably break, and you'll learn from that. Most of these features are table stakes for products today, built on the convention afforded to us by modern computing. There are few things worse than hitting cmd-z and nothing happening.

That brings me to a similar tangent with our team. On the design team, we work knowing with confidence that we can try something out. Something that in all likelihood won't work, and that's fine. Because sometimes, just sometimes it will work or at the very least open a door to another approach we would never have discovered. We need to feel comfortable with being wrong. It's non-negotiable that the environment fosters risk-taking and

In an industry where KPIs, metrics and dogmatic processes dominate, it's easy to get overwhelmed by the nature of product development. Our team is supported and encouraged to take risks. Sometimes those risks will pay off, other times they won't, but regardless of the outcome it will lead to a better product, and I suspect happier designers.