The Design Was Good-The Timing Wasn’t
Article summary
The Design Was Good-The Timing Wasn’t The worst architectural mistake I ever made wasn’t a bad design. It was a good one-delivered at the wrong time, to the wrong people, solving the wrong problem. On paper, it was airtight: a clean domain split, crisp interfaces, clear failure boundaries. But it ignored the org chart, the release schedule, the hiring plan, the product roadmap, the customer pressure. In short, it ignored context. That’s when I realized: architecture isn’t code-first. It’s context-first. The First Time I Missed the Context We were scaling fast. One of our core services was turning into a bottleneck-teams built workarounds, patched behavior, and grumbled. So I proposed a split: two focused services, better boundaries, clean interfaces. Technically flawless. But one of the new services would have needed a dedicated team-and we didn’t have one.
Read Full Article on MediumPractical takeaway
The main idea behind The Design Was Good-The Timing Wasn’t is to help teams move from broad theory to clear, repeatable decision making. When teams apply this thinking, they reduce ambiguity and focus on improvements that deliver measurable momentum.
Example scenario
Imagine a team facing competing priorities. By applying the ideas in The Design Was Good-The Timing Wasn’t, they can map dependencies, identify risks and choose the next move that produces progress without destabilizing their system.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Trying to redesign everything instead of taking small steps.
- Ignoring real constraints like incentives, ownership or legacy systems.
- Creating documents that do not lead to any change in code or decisions.
How to apply this in real work
Start by identifying where The Design Was Good-The Timing Wasn’t already shows up in your architecture or delivery flow. Then pick one area where clarity would reduce friction. Apply the idea, measure its effect and share the learning.
Signs you are doing it correctly
- Teams make decisions faster and with fewer disagreements.
- Architectural conversations become clearer and less abstract.
- Changes land safely with fewer surprises or rework cycles.