The Secret of Making More: Why Quantity Beats Quality

A fascinating experiment captured by David Bayles and Ted Orland sheds light on the Quantity vs. Quality conundrum—and valuable insights on how to approach problem-solving in your own work.

In the pursuit of creating something great, we often find ourselves torn between the ideals of quality and quantity.

The age-old debate of whether to focus on producing a large number of work or concentrating on a single masterpiece continues to perplex artists, entrepreneurs, and professionals alike.

A fascinating experiment described in the book Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland sheds light on this conundrum and offers valuable insights on how to approach problem-solving in general.

The Experiment: Making the Perfect Ceramic Pot

In the book, Bayles and Orland learn about a ceramics teacher who divides her class into two groups.

• Group 1: Quantity

• Group 2: Quality

These two groups’ grades will be measured on two very different things.

The first group's final grade depends on the number of ceramic pots they produce (Quantity), while the second group's grade is based on the quality of a single piece of work (Quality).

As the semester progresses, the Quantity group churns out numerous pots, whereas the Quality group focuses on creating a single masterpiece.

The result: The highest-quality works were produced by the Quantity group.

While Group 1 were busy creating as many pots as possible and learning from their mistakes, Group 2 spent their time theorising about perfection, ultimately presenting grandiose theories and piles of dead clay.

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Lessons for Mastering Iteration

The best way to solve any problem with a degree of ambiguity is through failure and iteration, rather than speculating about the perfect outcome.

Unfortunately, most of us work in environments that do not foster a sense of safety in making mistakes. Nor are we taught how to structure our problem-solving in an iterative way.

Even the word ‘failure’ is loaded with nonsense. Books and social media are packed with hustle-bro’s and survivor bias.

Instead, I want to offer some guiding principles for mastering iteration.

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1. Preemptive Versioning

Whether we have short or long deadlines, we need to make the most of the time we've got and adjust our approach accordingly.

Preemptive ‘versioning’ is when you bake-in iteration cycles into your process, regardless of what you’re doing.

A ‘version’ can be anything—a piece of work or even a decision.

The point is to set a goal before starting on how many ‘versions’ of something you are going to create.

Tip: Use the formula [Time]/[Versions]

Smart small, e.g. 5/2. Five days, two versions.

That’s one whole iteration more than if you allocated the full 5 days to finish version 1 that’s just good enough.

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2. Weighted Iteration Cycles

Fixating on a single piece of work, delivered just in time, will result in less quality than if you force yourself to create multiple versions over time—then iterate.

As a rule of thumb, it takes longer to create the first version of something than later versions.

Tip: Each iteration cycle should get shorter as you go.

Allocate a larger percentage of time your first version. And less and less to each iteration that follows. For example, 5/2 might be 3 days for the first iteration cycle, and 2 days for the second.

To avoid falling into the trap of trying to make the first version perfect and not having time for later iterations, aim for a ‘shitty first draft’.

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3. Shitty First Drafts

Second drafts “make it look like you knew what you were doing all along,” says author Neil Gaiman.

Version 1 should be a shitty first draft.

Tip: Version 1 of anything should feel unfinished and/or unpolished.

A good rule of thumb is that you should almost feel embarrassed by it.

But a shitty first draft is the start of a better second draft, and a second draft is the start of a great third draft, and so on.

Author Anne Lamott writes about shitty first drafts in her exceptional book Bird by Bird.

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The real lesson from this experiment revolves around the mechanics of how we think and make decisions. It’s subtle but powerful and plays a significant role in our everyday lives.

By understanding the importance of learning through iteration, we can shift our mindset and decision-making to embrace failure, experimentation, and growth.

So, the next time you're faced with a problem, or a question, and the answer isn’t clear, remember that embracing the power of quantity to produce something greater than if you focussed on perfection in the first place.