I’m currently reviewing the designs and videos for an animated course about blockchain. There are four different reviewers, each with a different focus. Mine is around correctness and consistency. In other words: nitpicking about grammar and spelling, mostly.
“We should not capitalize this word.” “This should be one word, not two.” “Plural makes more sense here.” As in all business ventures, everything that needs changing slows down the time to market. Therefore, I’m sure not everyone involved sees the point in obsessing over such details. “Who cares if it’s capitalized here and not there?” “It’s still the same phrase even if we merge it.”
Technically, they’re right. You could ship a product that’s at 95% and most people wouldn’t bat an eye. But if I can see a lack of consistency, there must be others who can see it too. And even if my company wasn’t one that prided itself on its thoroughness and academic rigor, I would always flag every issue I’d address if the project were entirely my own. Why?
The problem with shipping a product you know has minor flaws are not the minor flaws themselves—it’s all the other mistakes, both large and small, that you’ll miss, be it organically or for lack of trying to fix the little snags. Every typo you fix could open the door to spotting a bigger problem. And even once you rectify all the typos, there’ll still be flaws in your final result. Since nothing will ever be perfect, doing your very best is just good enough. It’s the most you can do but also the least you can do—and therefore exactly right.
Don’t skip the last five percent. Go all the way, and in the end, you’ll always have gone as far as you could possibly go.