At our recent mid-year meetings, I was reminded yet again just how excruciating it can be to make tough decisions about product roadmap. These discussions are typically some of our company’s most heated, and many dynamics combine to make the setting of product direction difficult. But the most challenging issue by far is guarding against Feature Creep. I’ve come to believe over time (to paraphrase the Apostle Paul) that “Feature Creep…is the root of all evil.”
On a human level, Feature Creep is totally understandable. We learn from a young age that more is necessarily better (having three cookies is better than two). As we grow, so too does our appreciation of choice (150 television channels are better than three; four AP credits on your college application are better than one). Not surprisingly, we reflexively apply this same thinking to our desire to please our clients; and it is exacerbated by the fact that team members have divergent views about how best to do so. The result is that we are naturally inclined to want to load up the features.
So, what is the big problem? First, as I’ve written about in this blog, there is the question of focus and the inconvenient reality that any organization has scarce resources in a world of seemingly infinite possibility. Perhaps even more importantly, the notion of “more” really isn’t necessarily better. The results of Feature Creep can be disastrous from a consumer perspective – for instance, the only thing I’ve ever been able to do with a 10-speed blender is break it. This concept was examined well by Faris Yakob in his Talent Imitates, Genius Steals” blog (he also examines Barry Schwartz’s related concept of the Paradox of Choice). The following light-hearted examples further drive the point home – sometimes more is less.
I was recently informed by a university CIO that he had just fired a large-scale, on-premise enterprise software vendor.
Why?
He explained that the solution was way too complex and difficult to implement / use. He would instead substitute a simpler but very reliable product, because, as he explained, “we aren’t living in a time for massive solutions.” We agreed that with respect to education software, these were no times for “black-magic and adventure.”
This same sentiment appears to be gaining traction among higher education executives, as indicated by a recent Campus Technologyarticle “IT on Demand: The Pros and Cons of Cloud Computing in Higher Education.” In addition to cost savings on software and hardware, cloud computing offers other worthwhile benefits:
Another factor driving universities in the direction of on-demand is faster implementation times. Where a traditional purchase-and-install application might take months to install and implement, on-demand options can often be up and running within a few weeks or sooner. There’s much less customization and hands-on installation with on-demand solutions. As a result, universities can go “live” and meet student needs much faster.
Robert Capps made similar points in this month’s Wired Magazine with his article “The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple is Just Fine.” In the article, Capps cites the Flip video camera, MP3’s, Skype, and the MQ-1 Predator plane as representing successful antitheses and antidotes to the vagaries of Feature Creep.” The common ground to these products, Capp explains, is that they are all inexpensive, easy to use, and available any time / anywhere. And…almost by definition…not cluttered with features.
The other reason for my current focus on Feature Creep is that is impacts a lot more than just product planning; and we’re on a mission to root it out. For instance, these same principles (and pitfalls) hold true for corporate planning and business development. If three partners are good, why not go get 20 of them?! Because the downstream organizational costs are massive.
As part of our mid-year planning, we’ve now pared back our wish-list of prospective new partners to the top 5. Likewise, when we first created our company dashboard to track our performance, it was a crowded mass of charts in 6-point font. After examining Feature Creep in this area, we now track five KPIs. In 2009 we reduced our attendance at industry conferences by 50%…and have suffered no ill-effects. In fact, our yields have increased significantly, because of the focus we now give to each.
Having said all that, I must admit to grappling personally with Feature Creep avoidance. I routinely try to fit 25 hours into the day and / or am tempted to shove “10 pounds of mud in a 5 pound bag.” Thankfully, with some rare exceptions and with the help of some valuable aids, I’m generally able to steer clear of this issue.
Those aids include:
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The Rule of 3: Whatever you are working on, boil it down to its three main elements
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Client Conversations: almost inevitably, these keep one focused on the most important points.
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Someone to Argue With: I can’t highlight enough the value of having a few truth-telling team members with contrarian views to scream loudly when I am clearly in danger of inviting Feature Creep.
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