The Myth of “We’ll Figure It Out During Development”
By A. Perico
1 min read
Relying on development to clarify requirements may feel efficient—but it creates hidden complexity and long-term cost.
The Myth of “We’ll Figure It Out During Development”
“We’ll figure it out during development” is one of the most common phrases used to justify weak early definition. It sounds pragmatic because it promises speed. The team will start building, learn as it goes, and avoid getting stuck in analysis. The problem is that this logic ignores where the cost of figuring things out lands.
It lands in implementation churn, interface rework, unstable testing, and expensive late clarification. The project does not avoid the work of definition. It simply relocates that work into a phase where more artifacts, people, and assumptions are already involved.
Development does not eliminate ambiguity. It absorbs it
When the project chooses not to define enough early, code becomes the place where missing decisions are made implicitly. The architecture, data model, edge-case handling, and interface logic start defining the system before the organization has agreed on it explicitly.
NASA notes that “the most dramatic impacts” of systems engineering analysis and optimization are obtained in the early stages.
NASA Systems Engineering Handbook, Program and Project Life Cycle
That means the earlier you decide not to do enough definition, the more you forfeit the cheapest place to shape the system.
The myth persists because coding looks like progress
Visible implementation feels productive. Requirements clarification does not. That is why so many organizations accept this myth. They are optimizing for what can be shown quickly rather than for what keeps the engineering baseline stable later.
Final thought
“We’ll figure it out during development” is not usually a strategy. It is a decision to move ambiguity into a more expensive phase and let code become the unofficial requirements engine.
If you do not define the system early enough, the implementation will define it for you, but without the visibility and control you should have had.