In the book Barking Up The Wrong Tree the author speaks about "The Scrooge Effect”. He explains that when you think about dying, it can make you nicer and more helpful to others. You focus on the long-term stuff instead of what's right next because you think about how you want to be remembered. That can sound depressing, I know. But there seem to be real benefits of such an attitude. The author explains that people who think about death often act healthier and may even live longer.

How can we apply this idea to the services we build? My first thought is that we can think about the death of our services to help us realise what we would really achieve with them. A bit like the Principle, "Decide as if you were a fucking millionaire".

The second way to apply this is to use the pre-mortem exercise where you ask yourself from time to time: what could lead to the death of our service? This will help you to discover the dangers ahead and think about ways to avoid these risks in the future.

Thinking about death isn't so depressing after all, right?