Today I’d like to share a mistake that I’ve made over and over again in my career. It’s a mistake I’m constantly trying to rectify, and succeeding, but still failing. It’s not just me either. Many of my OSS colleagues fall into the same trap, so there must be something in our nature that makes us hopeless at this.
We always want to throw just one more thing into whatever we’re working on, then another, then another. One more product function, one more stakeholder to review / approve, one more piece of feedback, one more data point, one more document, one more requirement, one more priority one activity, one more… I’m doing it again aren’t I?
But every “one more thing” is contributing to the slow-down of OSS, which just happens to be one of the biggest complaints about OSS projects. In fact, the extra things contribute to the extra complexity discussed in The Triple Constraint of OSS.
When throwing in one more thing:
– Consider from the UX (User’s experience)
– Consider whether increasing the number of stakeholders will cause decision stagnation
– Consider from complexity of delivery
Consider from the perspective of what will actually move the needle. Will that one more thing move the needle of whatever you’re trying to achieve?