There is a version of almost every project that could be live in three weeks and still be worth someone’s time. Finding it is not about cutting quality; it is about choosing which assumption gets tested first.
How we look for it
Take the launch date and ask what a user could do on the first real day. If the answer is nothing, the release is not a release. If the answer is one useful thing, ship that and learn from it.
What it protects you from
The big reveal. Long projects accumulate doubt, and the moment of launch is the worst possible time to discover that the premise was wrong.