Sometimes when I introduce myself to a group of people, I say I’m in charge of stopping feature creep. For anyone who works on the web, it should be a big part of your job.
Feature creep is when, usually a little at a time, a small project becomes a big project. Even if you aren’t a designer or programmer, you’ve probably experienced it. You know when you go on a vacation to a new city and you have a huge list of things to see that keeps growing? That’s feature creep, too.
A web company called Six Revisions has Eight Tips on How to Manage Feature Creep:
- Accept that feature creep will happen
- Commit enough time to requirements-gathering
- Giving a hand might cost you your arm
- Be the devil’s advocate when changes are requested
- Be task-oriented, not vision-oriented
- Shed the “Customer is Always Right” mentality
- Research before committing
- Realize that feature creep is a two-way street
To not combat feature creep is to let your project become too complex. If a new feature isn’t necessary, scrap it, especially if this is a new project.
Read the full article to see their explanation of these eight tips.
Love that list!