Ship at 70 Percent

The Promise

The last 30% of information is the most expensive and the least available. Decide and ship when you have most of what you need, then let course-correction finish the job.

How It Works

• Ask which door this is. Reversible (two-way door) decisions get made fast and low, by whoever is closest. Irreversible (one-way door) decisions earn the slow, careful process. Don't run reversible calls through irreversible rigor.
• Set the bar at 70% and move. Once you have most of the information (or the draft carries the core value), decide or ship. The missing 30% resolves faster by acting than by waiting.
• Invest in correction. Because you moved early, keep a tight feedback loop to catch what you got wrong. The skill that makes 70% safe is fixing mistakes fast.

In Practice

Waiting for 90% feels responsible, but it makes you slow, and speed is itself a form of quality. Being wrong at 70% and fixing it fast beats being right at 90% and arriving late. The same logic holds for the work itself: ship at 70% and improve in the open, instead of polishing toward a perfection that never ships. Reserve the polish for the vital few things that move the outcome. Perfect those, ship the rest at 70%.