‘We’ll Fix It Later’ Is Why Your Model Won’t Survive Production

Read time: 2.5 minutes

What Works Instead?

1. The production environment is not meant for testing.

• The production environment is meant for making decisions.
• Any mistakes made in the production environment will produce real-world consequences.
Solution: Validate assumptions before going into production. Test edge cases, not average cases.

2. If your data pipeline is shaky now, it will only be more fragile later.

• Badly designed data pipelines will not get better under stress.
Solution: Stabilize your data pipeline, lock your schema, and remove temporary code.

Temporary code will become permanent code when it is put into production.

3. Accurate data is not synonymous with reliable data.

• An accurate model that produces random results will not be useful.
Solution: Monitor the consistency of your outputs, monitor your drift, and validate your outputs over time.

4. Saying, “We’ll fix it later” removes ownership from your model.

• Without a direct line of ownership, no one will provide a real solution to your issue.
Solution: Assign ownership of your model, pipeline, and outcomes to team members.

If no one owns something, there is no one to take responsibility for fixing it.

5. Production is a multiplier.

• Well-designed systems scale well.
• Poorly designed systems fail faster.
Solution: Consider production to be the final exam, not practice.

💡Key Takeaway: 

If you believe that "fixing in production" is part of your design plan, then you have not created an actual working product. You simply put an exception to the rule .