TLDR: Check out MadlibMascots.com – infusing AI with team building. Use it for your next team building exercise.
I first heard of this phrase within the gamedev world, but subsequently learned of the “Ninety-ninety rule”:
The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time. – Tom Cargill from Bell Labs
A few months ago, I started working on MadlibMascots.com – exploring the cross section of AI and team building, and learning a bit about business, marketing, and also charging/collecting money. I’ll save that for another post but it was/is a great learning experience.
Often, with my side projects I do 90% because I get what I wanted out of it. In gamedev, it might be exploring a game mechanic or idea. In a side project, it might be learning the technology or having a working proof of concept. But with a project I actually want to publish, and charge money for, I really do have to do the last 10%.
Whether it’s a creative endevour like game development, or a technical exercise like a SasS product, the details matter and polishing it is time consuming. It requires being really diciplined about what is the next task in order to avoid getting distracted on something not important. With this project, I actively made choices I would not otherwise do, noting something was “good enough” or that I had bigger issues to tackle. Even with brutal prioritzation, this project still took much longer to launch than I expected.
Then there is the 110% – this project has been mostly ready for a few months, but I’ve dragged my feet on launching it. Part of it is laziness, not wanting to configure Stripe for production or writing this blog post. Another part is knowing when is good enough. There’s so much more I want to do*, but at some point I have to call it ready.
My project commits over time. March was putting my head down and doing the last 1%.
*My idea is to have a collection of AI-powered team building exercises. Madlib Mascots is just the first!
Think back to a recent or on-going project of yours. Was my statement true? I suspect yes. Whether a solo, personal project or a larger corporate project, acknoledging this and planning for it will set better expectations for everyone (including yourself) and lead to better execution. Note – better can mean many things! For me, it’s mitigating the guilt I feel when I choose not to work on this project.
Even after drafting this post, there were still so many finishing touches: Some sort of alerting if the server hits an error, a contact email/link in the website, finalizing the Stripe “Live” products and testing with my real card, etc etc.
I did eventually “complete” my project. I’m sure I’ll get feedback or work on the next iteration.The last 10% made will make me even more proud looking back.
What is Madlib Mascots?
Well, head over to the site for the full pitch!
But in short, it is using AI to generate Mascots that take inspiration from multiple team members. For example, maybe John likes cycling and Amy’s spirit animal is a elephant and Aaron likes vintage posters. With the help of AI, we can create a vintage poster of an elephant cycling, and there’s their mascot! Do this a few times with different groups, and it’s a quick and fun way to get to know each other. You might discover that there’s many tennis fans within the team.
Thanks for reading. Enjoy a few other mascots below
