Be flexible on product scope. Not time and quality!

Dear reader,

This is the third and last part of “How to reach deadlines”. This is possibly the simplest part and it might be that I am kicking in open doors for many of you. But I am going to write about it anyway.

To be able to be fully flexible on your product scope it is best to work with agile development. If you have developed your product starting from the showstoppers going down the product backlog to the "good to have" stuff, you are in a quite good position to decide when to stop adding new functionality. Many times we think that a functionality is a showstopper, but I am sure that it might not be if you think really hard about it...So be smart and de-scope things that you surely can live without and add them as an upgrade later. Even fundamental things that have been on your showstopper list might not be a showstopper.
For example, with the very much hyped iPhone, I am quite sure that they wanted to have multitasking even in the first release. But they probably ran low on memory when opening too many applications, which creates the feeling of a slow UI etc. They simply had to make a decision not to include the multitasking; to be able to release the product with as good quality as possible. Many people have of course criticized Apple for not having multitasking, but they are selling like no one else, so I think Apple is not too sorry about it. In my opinion it was a very very wise decision and I know another company that might had been more successful today if they would have made the same type of decisions in 2005/06.

So the point is, always look at the scope first and be creative, the showstoppers you think you have might not be showstoppers and never compromise on time and quality.

Best regards

Anders