If you regularly work with clients you understand how easy it is to let a project spin out of control and wind up fatty and huge… we call it scope creep, and before you know it the project’s over budget and shipping late. Avoiding scope creep is a topic in itself, so instead what I offer here are a few ways to counterbalance scope creep and bloated projects.
Most projects start innocently enough. Parameters are set, goals are defined, and work begins. The fat begins when someone says, “Oh wait, what about this…?” and a new feature is added. Then a little while later it happens again and yet another feature is added. Before too long you’ve got a project that should be 150 pounds weighing in at twice its healthy weight: a whopping 300 pounds. That’s the heavy-weight, out-of-breath division. And now you’re dealing with some unhealthy problems:
- Your project is sluggish, dragging on and on.
- You miss your deadline and it ships late.
- You’ve spent more money than you like and earned less than you wanted.
- You’ve added a lot of extra fat that’s hard to shed.
Imagine yourself at twice the weight you should be. I’m already a chunky dude… all of a sudden I can’t get out the door. Feeling panicked? That wouldn’t be so uncommon. Those bloated projects create panic in lots of people. So now the goal is to rescue the project and trim off the fat. Do this and watch its metabolism increase–almost overnight!
- Think simple while thinking big.
- Exclude features until they’re necessary.
- Focus on quality, not quantity.
- Minimize expenses and stick to your budget.
- Finish the big stuff first.
One reason all those extra pounds wind up on a project is because of big thinkers. Big thinkers rock; they keep the vision alive and the project moving. Most entrepreneurs, presidents, and project managers are big thinkers. They have the vision and drive to take something small and make it big. If you’re one of those types, the challenge is to learn self control and hold back from pushing too much bacon through the chute at once. (It’s hard to imagine, but yes, you can have too much bacon.)
Thinking simple is about breaking up a project into a smaller, more manageable work flow–it’s streamlining a process and cutting off the extra fat. If you’re struggling with this, then put yourself in place of the end user of your product. Is it easy to use? Can they figure it out without a user manual? What extra features are not necessary, just cool? Twitter is an example of thinking simple while thinking big. Their interface is very simple yet it moves people in a big way. Through time they continue adding small and simple features that enhance the overall quality of the product. Twitter is a no-fat product. And that brings us to the next point…
I’ve seen too many projects start simple and wind up complicated… before you know it the deadline is missed, the budget is exceeded, and it’s so stuffed with features that it puts Thanksgiving turkeys to shame.
And if you’re shooting for the wow! factor this might be okay, but don’t count on it. Most of your users are not going to use all those added features because that’s all they are–features. They’re not necessary to complete the task, they just make it lively.
Here’s how to make this work… using only the bare essentials create a functioning product. Your goal is to end up with a simple and super-efficient skeleton. This could take some practice because it takes God-like resistance to not add fat (or want to keep it). Most likely, you’ve got a working product that’s got a few extra pounds to shed. Take your product and reduce it by 50% while still allowing an end-user to get from point A to Z. This forces you to streamline the process. Do this again, reducing the fat by another 30%. Then do it again, reducing it by 20%.
You’ll be surprised with how much fat you can trim and have an awesome, workable product. The great part is that the more you do this the easier it becomes, and soon you’ll find you can easily recognize the unnecessary fat spots as you’re going along. Fatty features slow down your project. Get rid of them.
Also, by starting with the minimum and releasing your lean product you can more accurately measure who wants to use your product, and determine what features are truly necessary. It will save you time, money, and effort and allow you to focus on quality.
Spammers go for quantity. Large corporations who waste money go for quantity. But you’re not a spammer, and you definitely don’t want to waste money. That’s why trimming the fat lets you focus on quality. It’s easier to make the entire project look better, run smoother, and remain trouble-free when it’s well-built. When you keep adding fat to your project, you begin sacrificing quality and you miss deadlines.
Don’t allow additions to your project past a specific date. In other words, don’t allow scope creep. Remove any features that are not functional without the addition of more features… save them for a second project cycle and by then, figure out what’s really necessary. When you keep adding features you miss your deadline (I have to say it again because it keeps happening), and you end up way over budget. If you’re a freelancer, that means you get paid less for a lot more time that was spent on wasted effort.
This is a tough one. The first rule of minimizing your expenses is to know your budget. This may be the amount you bid for the project compared to your expenses, or it may be how much the company you work for has allotted you. The second rule is to stick to it.
With your budget you should first make sure the absolutely essential functions work (and work well). From there, you can re-evaluate the budget and decide which features can be added. This keeps you on or under budget and also allows you to ship on time with a workable product.
Once you’ve determined what the essential features are, finish the big stuff first. Instead of completing all the small parts and then building the shell around it, build the shell first and fit the small pieces into it. This naturally keeps the shell from expanding and instead compels you to shrink the contents to fit… a natural way to slough that extra fat.
Another way of thinking about this is to forget the small “prep” items that are nothing more than procrastination triggers. It’s easy to get sidetracked on all the little things that have to happen to launch a project. Don’t let yourself get sucked into this. Before you know it, you’re out of time and all you’ve done is add fat to the project.
A word of warning… this isn’t going to be easy. It will require you to shift your thinking and take a stand. To make it easier on yourself, remember that you can release projects in groups. What you can’t fit into the first release group, you can stick into the next. This will give you some time to mull every ‘feature’ over and determine if it’s really worth it or not.
Now it’s your turn to share how you trim the extra fat from your projects in the comments below.
Chris, this post goes into a lot of details… but I have noticed that when people came to us to design and program a project, they’d come with their own notions of what they wanted from the system. Do they really need the ‘what if they do…. this’? scenario for everything? Pretty debatable.
I think you, as the designer/programmer, need to know how to cut the fat so the project can be simple and used effectively.
Good post!
.-= Moon Hussain ´s last blog post: 11 Ways to Make Passive Income =-.
It goes both ways. Clients need to understand that when they keep adding stuff to a project, the deadline that they’re expecting is going to shift. As a designer/developer/writer, etc. you’ve got to know how to cut the fat yourself and and in some cases help the client understand why something may not be needed. The hard part (and I’ve seen time and time again) is people all too often keep adding stuff after the fact… maybe they hadn’t thought of it when the project started… actually, I have a hard time thinking of a time this hasn’t happened.
Also, clients often aren’t 100% sure of what they need and are relying on their hired help to coach them through things and help them think through things, and sometimes the client wants a fatty project. So be it, give them a fatty project, but do your best to trim it down on your end. Just make sure you break it up into manageable deadlines so you can meet the delivery date.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Good thoughts. I’d be curious to have you illustrate what you’re talking about with some examples. Most people complain about scope creep, but in the end it usually seems companies cater to the client-initiated add-ons, even if it does make the project late.
Plus, a bloated project may not really be bloated – it may be that you failed to recognize it for what it was in the first place. In other words, you failed to plan and do your research. You think your project is a 100-pound monkey but when you actually get into it, you find that it’s an 800-pound gorilla.
I was also thinking, we’re not always in a position of power to control scope creep at work. We just have to do our best to manage our portion. I think your ideas have a legitimate personal application, though. Personal projects suffer from scope creep just as much as business projects. Breaking them down into manageable parts and trimming the fat is not only a great way to keep them in check, but it also helps you feel like you have accomplished more with less time.
Great points, thanks. Yeah, sometimes those projects do surprise you and end up being huge… Typically there’s always going to be some adjustments made in a project, but it’s best when it’s done at the beginning. Proper planning and breaking up the project into trimmed-down sections helps with those crazy 800-pound surprises and makes them more manageable. You can still have an 800-pound gorilla, just be sure to not give him too many bananas.