The FDE Rapid Prototyping Playbook
One user, one workflow, one painful moment, and a working build by Friday. The FDE playbook for shipping in days, not quarters.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryKilling Features: The Skill Nobody Practices
Every shipped feature becomes tomorrow's maintenance burden — the underrated skill of knowing what to delete before it drags your team down.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryChoosing Pilot Users: The Make-or-Break Call
Picking the wrong pilot users kills software rollouts. Here's how to choose honest operators who de-risk launch.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryThe Launch Day Playbook for Internal Software
The best internal tool is useless if nobody adopts it. Here's the launch playbook that turns software into habit.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryThe Internal Tool Nobody Uses (Fix It)
Internal tool adoption doesn't happen by default. The rollout playbook that turns shipped software into daily habit.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryShipping Safely at a Client Site
Backups before deploys, flags on, rollback ready — the production discipline that keeps embedded engineers sleeping through the night.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryTesting When You're Shipping Fast: The 80/20 Suite
You don't need 100% coverage to ship fast safely. Here's the testing strategy for rapid development that catches the bugs that matter.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryMinimum Viable Documentation for Fast Builds
The five docs that matter for fast builds — and why your wiki is probably a graveyard.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryThe FDE Handoff Checklist: Leave Without Breaking
The deliverable of the final month is your own dispensability. Docs, access, runbooks, the bus test, and the tapered exit that leaves nothing broken.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryThe Weekly Release Cadence Clients Love
Plan Monday, ship Tuesday, demo Friday. Why a boring weekly drumbeat beats impressive speed for client trust, and what to do when you miss a week.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryScope Creep Defense: Rules of Engagement
Scope creep isn't a client character flaw; it's an intake system with no door. The parking lot, version numbers, and priced change requests fix it.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryDesign for One User First (Seriously, One)
Organizations don't have workflows; people do. Pick one named user, delete their worst hour, and let delight recruit user two.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryThe 48-Hour Build: Kick Off With Working Code
Ship something on day two. The 48-hour build is a trust device, a requirements vacuum, and the fastest way to make skeptics into collaborators.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryPrototype Tech Debt: Rewrite or Patch?
Rewrite the core loop, patch the edges, and stop apologizing for version one. A three-question test for the prototype tech debt decision.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryThe Stakeholder Demo Script That Wins Budget
Most demos die in the first two minutes. The seven-minute fix: one story, real data, one money slide, and a script that turns a prototype into approved budget.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryThe Prototype to Production Checklist: From Demo to Dependable
The demo got applause; now forty people want to use it Monday. Twelve unglamorous things and a two-week hardening plan stand between you and V1.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryWizard of Oz Prototyping: Fake It, Then Build It
Put a human behind a real interface to validate the workflow before paying for the automation. The wizard of oz playbook.
Read article → Prototyping & Delivery9 MVP Mistakes FDEs See Over and Over
From imaginary users to premature multi-tenancy, these nine MVP mistakes show up in nearly every failed first version. Here's the checklist and the fixes.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryOnsite Feedback Loops: Users Down the Hall
The embedded superpower: watch a user misclick at 9:40 and ship the fix by 11:50. How onsite feedback loops beat tickets, surveys, and telephone games.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryFeature Flags: The FDE's License to Ship Fast
Feature flags let you merge ugly-but-working code at a client site and still sleep at night. Deploy daily, release deliberately, roll back in seconds.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryDemo-Driven Development: Ship Toward the Show
Schedule a Friday demo with real users before any code exists, and the whole week of building sharpens itself around 4 p.m.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryWhy FDEs Ship in Days, Not Months
Embedded engineers don't code faster; they wait less. Context collapse, no telephone game, and permission to be imperfect, explained as mechanics.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryCutting MVP Scope Without Killing the Product
Your MVP ballooned because scope never arrives as a villain. The workshop that separates needed-to-learn from needed-someday, and what never to cut.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryThe One-Week Prototype: What You Can Ship
One working workflow, one user group, real data: the Monday-to-Friday plan and the brutal cuts that make a one-week software prototype real.
Read article → Prototyping & DeliveryFrom Prototype to Production in 30 Days: The FDE Playbook
A week-by-week breakdown of how a forward deployment engagement actually runs — from the first stakeholder interview to a solution your team uses daily.
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