When low OSS performance is actually high performance

It’s not unusual for something to be positioned as the high performance alternative. The car that can go 0 to 60 in three seconds, the corkscrew that’s five times faster, the punch press that’s incredibly efficient…
The thing is, though, that the high performance vs. low performance debate misses something. High at what?
That corkscrew that’s optimized for speed is more expensive, more difficult to operate and requires more maintenance.
That car that goes so fast is also more difficult to drive, harder to park and generally a pain in the neck to live with.
You may find that a low-performance alternative is exactly what you need to actually get your work done. Which is the highest performance you can hope for
.”
Seth Godin
in this article, What sort of performance?

Whether selecting a vendor / product, designing requirements or building an OSS solution, we can sometimes lose track of what level of performance is actually required to get the work done can’t we?

How many times have you seen a requirement sheet that specifies a Ferrari, but you know the customer lives in a location with potholed and cobblestoned roads? Is it right to spec them – sell them – build them – charge them for a Ferrari?

I have to admit to being guilty of this one too. I have gotten carried away in what the OSS can do, nearer the higher performance end of the spectrum, rather than taking the more pragmatic view of what the customer really needs.

Automations, custom reports and integrations are the perfect OSS examples of low performance actually being high performance. We spend a truckload of money on these types of features to avoid manual tasks (curse having to do those manual tasks)… when a simple cost-benefit analysis would reveal that it makes a lot more sense to stay manual in many cases.

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