Why "just prompt better" doesn't work

3 months ago

Coding assistants increase time spent on review and rework despite saving development time.
Communication friction is a major pain point in discovering and addressing technical constraints.
One-third of technical constraints are discovered during planning sessions, but communicating them effectively is challenging.
70% of technical constraints need to reach non-technical stakeholders, making resolution difficult.
50% of constraints are discovered during implementation, highlighting the dual-purpose of coding as context discovery.
Downstream realignment is expensive due to communication latency and redundant conversations.
Fragmented documentation exacerbates the problem, with 35% of constraint communication leaving no persistent artifact.
AI coding assistants can't refuse to write bad code, lacking the context to push back on poor ideas.
"Just prompt better" assumes foreknowledge of constraints, which is often lacking.
AI speeds up implementation but bypasses constraint discovery, shifting the burden to code review.
The solution lies in addressing context gaps during product meetings to improve cross-functional alignment.

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