How we build RM Compare

By Mark House

It's sometimes hard to communicate the best way to approach building something innovative like RM Compare. Software is complex and we are always dealing with very high levels of uncertainty - Adaptive Comparative Judgement is still a relatively new domain.

Same but different - lessons from REEKON

The video below comes from Christian Reed, the founder and CEO of REEKON Tools who recently described how they built a new, innovative digital tape measure. Sounds easy right? It's not.

"Our development process is optimised for speed and learning things fast and we have developed a wide range of internal competencies to crank models out." - Christian Reed.

Over the course of any given program, REEKON makes hundreds models with everything from foam to clay to 3D Prints, to urethane, to ultimately injection molded parts. All of this helps rapidly get products into the field, learn from how customers are using, and work on an improved next iteration.

Initially a Kickstarter venture the Product is due for release later this year with pre-orders open now. You can watch the entire process in the wonderful 36 second video below.

There is a lot of basic understandings contained in this image which is why I like it so much. Remember that each image does not correspond to a set time period, no doubt some of iterations took longer than others. Learning doesn't happen lineally at a steady pace (over 20 years at the chalkface taught me that), as much as we would like to plan ahead and forecast with certainty.

It's interesting to see that while the Kickstarter page for the tape measure stated, 'we expect orders to begin to ship in March 2025', pre-orders are now pointing toward the autumn. Reality often bumps into funder expectations and plans when we innovate!

The RM Compare experience

With RM Compare of course we are not building a tape-measure, however we are building something just as complex with even greater levels of uncertainty. That's why we take exactly the same approach as Christian and his team at Reekon. It reduces risk, lowers cost, and raises both pace and quality. Critically it is the best way to produce both end user and business value. We know this because great, innovative product companies have shown us over many years.

We build in very small increments. These are put into the hands of users as quickly and as often as possible to validate our assumptions and facilitate learning - this approach is sometimes called continuous delivery and continuous discovery. We can release iterations multiple times a day - speed of learning is our most important metric.

The faster we learn the quicker we can produce valuable software while maintaining the very highest quality. This understanding underpins our approach to innovation. We don't 'sprint', maintain a backlog, gather requirements, produce estimates, or measure velocity - none of this helps us to learn faster (in-fact it does the opposite and as such are innovation anti-patterns). Instead, we expect to pivot a lot as we learn and ensure therefore that we have an exceptionally low cost of change.

Summary

The challenge for software products is always the same - how do we build the right thing and build the thing right? The playbook is easy to understand but hard to master - there are lots of great, well known innovative product companies out there after all, but many more that are not. It requires discipline, some patience, and a willingness to trust the process. Most of all it needs a deep-rooted learning culture.

Unlike the tape measure, RM Compare is available right now and continues to innovate and add value every day. Sign up or get in touch for more information.