& Continuous Learning

The Road to Mordor: A Software Engineer’s Guide to Delivering Complex Features

Software development is often compared to embarking on a long journey. In fact, taking a groundbreaking business idea and delivering it to production can feel like something straight out of The Lord of the Rings. Just like Frodo Baggins had to carry the One Ring to Mount Doom, engineers face their own quests—turning complex and uncertain business features into a working product.

In this blog post, we’ll explore how delivering complex features mirrors Frodo’s epic journey. Along the way, we’ll uncover strategies to handle unknowns, break down the work, and ensure smooth delivery to production—all while having a bit of fun (without giant spiders or orcs involved).

The Challenge: An Unexpected Journey Begins

It always starts with an idea. Imagine you’re sitting in a daily stand-up meeting, and your CTO drops a bombshell: “We need AI-driven coupons for our customers.” The idea sounds exciting at first, but when you start thinking about it, the questions pile up. What exactly does “AI-driven” mean? Do we even have coupons? How do we integrate this with our existing infrastructure?

Suddenly, you’re at the start of an adventure filled with uncertainties. This moment, much like Frodo receiving the One Ring, marks the beginning of a long journey. The question is: How do you proceed?

In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo’s task is deceptively simple—take the One Ring to Mordor and destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom. But, as we know, the journey from the Shire to Mordor is anything but easy. Likewise, in software development, even the simplest business requests can become complex, high-risk projects.

Rushing In or Planning Ahead: Choose Your Path

In software development, there’s always the temptation to rush. Saruman, the corrupt wizard in The Lord of the Rings, would have you move quickly, ignoring the consequences. "Every moment lost brings us closer to failure!" he would argue. The rush to deliver can feel tempting when there’s pressure from stakeholders or executives eager to see results.

But as Frodo learned when he nearly met his death at the hands of the Nazgûl, rushing often leads to disaster. Skipping the planning phase in software development can cause missed requirements, technical debt, and risks that come back to haunt you.

Instead, take a page from Gandalf’s playbook: Start with careful planning, no matter how daunting the task ahead may seem. Gandalf’s wisdom would remind you to ask the right questions, gain a clear understanding of the requirements, and, most importantly, break the larger problem into smaller, more manageable pieces. This thoughtful approach ensures you're prepared to navigate even the most challenging parts of the journey.

1. Charting the Course: Planning Your Journey

Frodo’s first major goal is to reach Rivendell, a place of safety and counsel. In your journey, this step represents planning. Proper planning is essential before diving into any complex feature, no matter how tempting it is to start coding right away.

So, how do you carve out time for planning? In an ideal world, your business would fully recognize the value of dedicated planning sessions. But in reality, the pressure for quick results often takes priority. To work around this, you can integrate planning into your workflow by assigning specific team members to focus on it with a certain percentage of their capacity. Alternatively, create a dedicated planning ticket in your project management system (e.g., JIRA). Make it visible to the entire team—especially junior developers—so that everyone understands planning isn’t optional, but a critical step toward success.

At this stage, your first goal is to get a rough timeline. Estimates are rarely enjoyable, but they’re a necessary evil. Businesses rely on timelines for resource planning, alignment across teams, and determining the value of a project. A project may sound appealing, but an 18-month timeline can force critical conversations. Will the project still deliver the intended value? Is there a way to break it down for quicker wins? Without this clarity, even the most exciting ideas can lose momentum before they even begin.

2. Burning Down Risks with Spike Stories

Once you’ve done some planning, it’s time to start identifying the big risks in the project. In The Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship is faced with a decision: Should they take the long route over the Misty Mountains or the dangerous shortcut through the Mines of Moria?

In software development, we often face similar decisions. Instead of rushing headlong into the unknown, you need to figure out where your technical uncertainties lie and tackle those first. Spike stories, which are technical investigations, are a great tool for this. A spike story is designed to answer critical questions and reduce unknowns. For example, “What kind of database should we use for coupons?” or “How will the AI actually determine discounts?”

These stories help uncover unknowns early in the process, so you don’t face unpleasant surprises later on. As the Fellowship learned the hard way, it’s better to address these risks upfront than to deal with unexpected Balrogs lurking in your codebase.

3. Going Parallel: Splitting Up the Work

After the Fellowship makes it through Moria, the group splits up to cover different objectives. Sam and Frodo head toward Mordor, while Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli take off to rescue Merry and Pippin in Isengard. This strategy of working in parallel also applies to software teams.

Once the major risks are handled and the planning is done, splitting the work into distinct, parallel tasks can speed up delivery. For instance, one group can handle the front-end UI for coupon entry, while another tackles the back-end service that validates coupons. Meanwhile, another group might build the admin tool for creating and managing those coupons.

This parallel approach allows you to deliver different pieces of the project at the same time, ensuring you move quickly toward the goal.

4. Don’t Forget Observability: Know What’s Happening in Production

Before you deliver your project to production, there’s one essential step that many teams overlook—observability. In The Lord of the Rings, Saruman uses the Palantír (a seeing stone) to monitor the movements of his enemies and coordinate with Sauron. Without it, he’s blind to what’s happening.

Similarly, in software development, observability tools like dashboards, logs, and alerts ensure that you know exactly how your features are performing in production. Is the coupon system working as expected? Are users applying the coupons? Is there any latency during checkout that could lead to customer drop-off?

These are critical questions that observability tools can answer, and skipping this step could result in catastrophic issues post-launch.

5. Leadership: Be Like Sam

Finally, as a senior developer or tech lead, you play a role similar to Sam in The Lord of the Rings. Sam isn’t the one who carries the One Ring into Mount Doom, but he’s there to help Frodo every step of the way. As a leader, your job isn’t to write all the code—it’s to guide your team, offer support when needed, and step in only when absolutely necessary.

In one memorable scene, Sam carries Frodo when he’s too weak to continue. But he doesn’t drop the ring into the fire—that’s Frodo’s job. Likewise, help your team by removing roadblocks, giving guidance, and letting them take ownership of the feature delivery.

6. Conclusion: Reflect and Celebrate

The journey to deliver a complex feature can be long and arduous, but once you’ve successfully deployed it to production, take time to reflect. Hold retrospectives to identify what went well and what could be improved. Celebrate your successes with the team, whether it’s with a shared lunch or an after-work event. Just as the Fellowship celebrated the destruction of the One Ring, your team deserves recognition for the hard work they put in.

Delivering complex features is a journey full of risks, planning, and teamwork. By taking the time to plan, burn down risks, work in parallel, and maintain observability, you can ensure that your projects reach production smoothly—without rushing headlong into the fires of Mount Doom. Just remember, like Frodo and Sam, success comes when you work together, take it one step at a time, and enjoy the adventure.