INDUSTRIAL DESIGN: fast timelines produce slow products

When you compress the design schedule, you don't save time. You move the delays downstream.

Skip user research and you'll redesign after launch. Rush tooling decisions and you'll debug manufacturing for months. Cut prototype iterations and you'll spend a year in customer support fixing what testing would have caught.

Fast timelines create technical debt that takes three times longer to pay back. Teams that skip the thinking phase spend years patching problems that proper development would have prevented.

The prototype that works versus the product that ships are two different problems. One requires speed. The other requires thinking.

The slowest way to ship a product is rushing the design phase. You're not saving time. You're deciding when to spend it and how much it'll cost.