Incomplete

I found this neat post today via “Joel on Software” about the difference between Incrementalists & Completionists.  According to Rands, Incrementalists are people who will do just what they need to do to solve an immediate problem, even if it doesn’t address the whole problem.  And Completionists are people who want to solve the whole problem right the first time.  He says Incrementalists are realists and Completionists are dreamers. 

I decided that I’m a Completionist but I wish I were an Incrementalist.  I feel like I have tons of good ideas for businesses, or software programs, or blizzog posts or whatever, but I spend so much time thinking about how to do them exactly the right way that I never end up doing anything.  I either talk myself out of it or end up getting bored with it because I’ve moved on to the next thing.  Rands says that it’s good to have both types of people in an organization.  He’s right, but I think if you’re an entrepreneur trying to start a business or a writer trying to start a new piece or a programmer trying to start a fake internet rap group - all things that I aspire to - it is much better to be an Incrementalist.

When you’re an Incrementalist you just do things.  Some of them turn out good and some of them don’t, but at least you’ve done something and often you can learn from the mistakes you made on the bad things.  I wish I could be more like that.  There’s a guy I used to work with at Sara Lee who is this way and I’m totally jealous.  We didn’t have a .NET User’s Group in this area a couple years ago so he just started one.  He didn’t like the way SQL Query Analyzer worked so he just started writing his own at home one day.  When it started to flesh out after a month or so he put up a web site to release new builds and eventually started selling them for a few bucks here and there.  I just checked in on it the other day and it seems that he’s sold the software to a larger software company in the Triangle and is probably making or made some decent money off of it.

I think both of those things are so cool.  I don’t think I could’ve done either of them.  I would still be designing the 5th Option tab for the SQL Editor and I’d still be writing other .NET User Group presidents to find out the best way to start a group.  I have domain names for business ideas that I thought of years ago that I keep paying money to renew every year just in case I might actually do something with it one day.  Ugh. 

I want to change but I think it’s going to be hard.  At least I have a plan though:  as soon as I figure out the best possible way to become an Incrementalist I’m going to do it.