--- title: Phased Design Doesn't Have A Finish Line | daily.dev description: Phased design — where all design work is front-loaded before the build begins — is fundamentally flawed. The hardest design decisions emerge during the build... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/phased-design-doesn-t-have-a-finish-line-wtju773ns twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Phased Design Doesn't Have A Finish Line | daily.dev og:description: Phased design — where all design work is front-loaded before the build begins — is fundamentally flawed. The hardest design decisions emerge during the build... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/phased-design-doesn-t-have-a-finish-line-wtju773ns og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/wtJU773ns.png og:image:alt: Phased Design Doesn't Have A Finish Line og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Phased Design Doesn't Have A Finish Line **[Atomic Spin](https://daily.dev/sources/atomicobject)** · 6 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Phased design — where all design work is front-loaded before the build begins — is fundamentally flawed. The hardest design decisions emerge during the build phase, when real data, edge cases, and users expose gaps in early assumptions. When design capacity is exhausted up front, those decisions still get made, just by developers under deadline pressure without design oversight. The alternative is treating design as a continuous rate of effort throughout the project rather than a lump sum at the start: keeping designers in standups, PR reviews, and edge-case discussions. This approach trades the false comfort of a clean Gantt chart for catching wrong turns while they're still fixable, framing it to clients as risk reduction rather than scope creep. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Protect the Phases](https://daily.dev/posts/protect-the-phases-1xzjzod46) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [dotNetDave Says… Rushing into Coding Without Proper Planning Will Lead to Costly Mistakes and Delays](https://daily.dev/posts/dotnetdave-says-rushing-into-coding-without-proper-planning-will-lead-to-costly-mistakes-and-delays-vifrw1meo) · We Are .NET · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Build Fast and Shallow on Purpose](https://daily.dev/posts/build-fast-and-shallow-on-purpose-qpxnznmhm) · Atomic Spin · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Design Systems Are Products, Not Projects \| Why Yours Is Failing](https://daily.dev/posts/design-systems-are-products-not-projects-why-yours-is-failing-lfxllhcal) · ITNEXT · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Engineering Manager](https://daily.dev/posts/the-engineering-manager-iunymzylz) · Tech Lead Digest · 17 upvotes · 1 comments --- Tags: [#general-programming](https://daily.dev/tags/general-programming), [#ux](https://daily.dev/tags/ux), [#agile](https://daily.dev/tags/agile) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/phased-design-doesn-t-have-a-finish-line-wtju773ns) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Phased Design Doesn't Have A Finish Line","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/phased-design-doesn-t-have-a-finish-line-wtju773ns","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/phased-design-doesn-t-have-a-finish-line-wtju773ns"},"datePublished":"2026-07-27T12:06:06.365Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T07:39:41.962Z","description":"Phased design — where all design work is front-loaded before the build begins — is fundamentally flawed. 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