If you follow the rules that come with Monopoly, you can play a game in under two hours. But because people think playing it takes forever, they institute house rules.

Those house rules may sound like they speed the game up, but they actually are what turn a fun game with friends into an agonizing experience that often ends in hatred.

Game designers hone their craft over decades of game design, play testing, and refining. They often get to release their games once, so they take the time to get them right before shipping their final drafts to manufacturing.

In our sector, we call this “tech debt.” Or rather, a lack of tech debt. Taking the time to do things correctly has graced us with incredible board games like Settlers of Catan, Gloomhaven, and yes - even Monopoly.

We could all take a page out of the book of prominent game designers and thoroughly work through our solutions to make sure we’re shipping feature complete products that buy us back more time for future innovation.