[37signals Lingo] Low hanging fruit Jan 24
9 comments Latest by Brian
low-hanging fruit n. The easiest task or the most readily achievable goal.
“Low hanging fruit” search results from our internal Campfire chat room:
(For sticklers, a real world reality check on “low hanging fruit”: Experienced fruit pickers actually start at the top in order to avoid harder picking and poorer fruit. And one expert says, “In the past, we had larger trees that required ladders. The new trees are ‘pedestrian’ trees that don’t require ladders. So instead of picking the low-hanging fruit, the industry has lowered the tree.”)
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9 comments so far
Jacob Patton 24 Jan 07
This post has great timing: I just wrapped up a project by only hitting only the low hanging fruit. Once the really easy things were done, I moved on to the next easiest and so on, and pretty soon, everything was finished.
This tactic reminds me of the Debt Snowball method, whereby you pay off your smallest debts first. It goes counter to logic, since your bigger debts (or higher interest ones) are costing you more, but the feeling of accomplishment you get from marking debts off your list keeps you going, and you get done with things quicker than if you had done things “properly.” I feel the same way about project management—some people want to plan for every contingency, but I think that if you have a good idea in place, a simple plan, and just hammer things out (read: Get Things Done), things go much more quickly.
Lincoln 24 Jan 07
Isn’t that just an industry standard at this point. The word to investigate is “actionable”...which the late great Ms. Harpold understood doesn’t mean what every single boss I know think it means.
Marko 24 Jan 07
So what would our industry equivalent of lowering the tree be?
Kendall 24 Jan 07
Seems the low-hanging fruit to be had to answer that question is: A straight-forward framework that makes programming fun.
Seems like a home run there Marko. Great idea!!!
Greg 24 Jan 07
So what would our industry equivalent of lowering the tree be?
Rails?
I’m only half-joking. OK, maybe more than half.
Ara Pehlivanian 24 Jan 07
Shouldn’t the definition include “that returns the greatest return”? I mean, doing the simple tasks is all well and good, but I thought that the low-hanging fruit were the ones that brought the most return.
Travis Beck 24 Jan 07
I think you’re missing the most obvious low-hanging fruit.
-abbreviating low-hanging fruit (lhf)
that would save you hundreds of man hours during your chat sessions.
Karl 24 Jan 07
Buzzword memes are really annoying.
Brian 24 Jan 07
Interesting because whenever I have heard the phrase “low-hanging fruit” I always took it to mean those tasks that are deceivingly easy but end up being way more trouble that it is worth and in turn take you way of track. I run away from low-hanging fruit.
All a reference to the mythology of Tantalus, who would reach for low-hanging fruit only for it to go higher, and then when reaching for water it went lower…thus he could never reach his goal.
Great to learn how others derive meaning from a common phrase.
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