Proof before polish
[Part 1 of 6] The quiet failure at the root of most delivery teams.
You’re getting one email a day from me this week.
It’s a short series: six notes, six core ideas.
Not a playbook. Not a pitch.
Just the mindset and tools I’ve come to rely on when I want to know, “Are we actually solving the right problem?”
I call this approach Proof Before Polish.
Because beautiful solutions don’t matter if we’re solving the wrong thing.
No one sets out to build the wrong thing.
That’s the part that still gets me.
Teams don’t fail because they’re careless.
They fail because they’re trying to move forward with foggy inputs and make-or-break assumptions dressed up as facts.
And we let it happen…
Because asking, “Are we sure this is the right thing to build?” can sound like a threat.
Because validating the problem feels like a delay.
Because everyone just wants to get started.
I’ve seen it happen in all kinds of ways:
A feature shipped to deadline only to be quietly abandoned
A “priority” that turns out to be an inherited opinion
A roadmap based on vibes, not evidence
A huge investment in a tool no one asked for but no one challenged either
None of it looks like failure at the time.
It looks like momentum.
Until the real costs surface: rework, team burnout, client churn, another quarter lost chasing the wrong thing.
At some point I realized: Most “requirements” aren’t requirements at all.
They’re assumptions.
Or personal preferences.
Or someone’s leftover idea from a past role that no one questioned because they said it with enough conviction.
That was the shift.
The job isn’t just gathering or documenting or prioritizing.
The job is asking: What are we actually solving for and how do we know it’s real?
That question—“Do we know it’s real?”—has quietly changed how I work.
And in the next note, I’ll show you the first tool I use to start untangling the mess.
Until next time,
Pragati
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For business analysts, product thinkers, and leaders who know: Shipping isn't the hard part. Knowing what's worth building is.