Done Means No Rough Edges #

Nowadays a lot of software comes packed with features that you can clearly see that they haven’t been used by any customer of the product before being launched to the public. 

This manifests with scenarios like having to make a few wrong attempts in order to see how a feature works, when the tools usage flow is clunky, many options available all thrown together in an attempt to cross off as many items as possible from the features list.

This kind of behaviour erodes your customer trust and lowers their expectations of your products thus perceiving it as a low value product. Their thought process is “What if it remains like this forever?”. Product businesses can actually escape from this hole if the move fast enough and iterate enough until they deliver what they initially have promised.

Unfortunately, when businesses outsource their software needs and the budget limit is reached there is no more room for new iterations and improvements and they get stuck with a piece of software that they need but can’t actually use productively. I can’t even imagine the frustration of the people who have to make use of that kind of tools in order to get their job done.

As for the teams working non-stop to get all the rough features out there in the first version and then working on cleaning up the mess made in the first place and then on improving all the features at once; the situation is a living nightmare, a perfect recipe for disaster and dissatisfaction at every level inside your team.

The good news is that there is only one solution. You just have to reduce the scope. Ship only that which has smooth edges and rounded corners. It is far better to be basic and then delight than solving someone’s dragging frustration.

“Yes!, finally!” or “Oh, finally…” . Which one do you prefer?