Shorten The Time Required

We'd been working on an internal project for developing a software product for months. We'd gone back and forth discussing features, business models, distribution method etc. But no progress was apparent. Our team was also losing enthusiasm for the project.

Then it happened.

We were sitting in on a meeting to discuss what technologies we should be using for developing the product and how we should evaluate the available technology options. We were also thinking of creating a set of screens of the proposed application and getting feedback from our focus group of users. One of our developers suggested that we think small and release something fast rather than spend time on lengthy evaluations of technologies. He also challenged our approach for getting user feedback by saying that we'd be better off getting feedback on a working product rather than a set of stationary screens which forced users to imagine too much of the proposed product.

I walked up to the board and put a date that was just 7 days away from our current date and said that we would build something in 7 days. We would do this not by adding more people to the project but rather by reducing the scope and complexity of our vision. We would reduce the number of features until the point where only the core differentiating feature of the product would be visible and working.

All of a sudden the entire team was galvanized. The mood changed from one of boredom to extreme enthusiasm. And in a short while we had a working prototype to show to users. It was rather basic and did not have too many bells and whistles. But it did it's basic function admirably well.

The big lesson I took away from this is this:

We tend to confuse greatness with complexity. So when we embark on a grand project, we unconsciously keep increasing the scope of the project in order to fit in with our internal definition of grandness.

One way to fight this is to reduce space. For example - Jeff Hawkins - the founder of the company that invented Palm Pilot is said to have walked around with a small block of wood which was about the size of a Palm Pilot when the Palm was under development. Every time an engineer came up with a feature, Jeff would show the block of wood and ask the engineer to fit in the feature into the available limited space. This constraining of space forced the team to reduce features to the point of elegance.

Another way to fight complexity is by reducing time. This is what we did. By reducing the amount of time available we were able to reduce features until it became manageable and the vision became attainable. One danger that lurks in reducing available time is to think of adding additional people to the project. This is the absolute worst of both worlds. Because you need time to organize people and because you need time to enable communication to occur between people, and because people tend to act in ways that you did not expect, if you add more people you tend to increase the time required for completion. This is especially true for software development which is akin to art. You would not in your wildest dreams say, "If it took 1 artist 1 year to complete the Mona Lisa, it should take 12 artists just one month to complete it!"

So the next time you work on a project, simplify the objective, shorten the time and reduce the number of resources. You will see magic happening!