The life cycle of a feature through the eyes of a feature in a product
The life cycle of a feature through the eyes of a feature in a product
Day 1. Hooray, I appeared as a crystal and beautiful idea! Ahead of me is a wonderful world and the opportunity to bring value to users!
Day 3. Today I was presented to the managers. Everything went great, only at the end they suggested adding three more buttons and a cream pop-up, because the vice president's wife really likes this design. She is a landscape designer. No one was against it, everyone agreed that I am very important and have the highest priority!
Day 4. Grooming day. The back-end developer said that he would need 6 months to work on me and some refactoring, because there were remnants of my predecessor left in the code. The designer suggested adding 3D animation to me and making flying confetti. The whole team carefully examined me for about an hour, choosing where to put the confetti. As a result, they decided to remove the payment form from me and insert achievements instead. While everyone was applauding, the back-end developer quietly took out a flask, took a sip, and handed it to the front-end developer.
Day 8. The whole day, the product manager with a ruler and a calculator looked at me and said that he would prioritize me using rice. Weird.
Day 9. I was taken to the backlog. There are 76 more features in front of me. I look at their wrinkled faces and faded eyes. Many have been in the backlog for years. Half of them are with the "blocker" priority. Most already have rotten parts. But I look to the future with optimism, despite the smell of the place I ended up in.
Day 90. The product manager sometimes drops by. Today he came in, muttering something about Nord Star Metrics, graphs to the right and up, and "Danilov will approve", touching us all in a nasty way. He takes the "redesign" feature and leaves.
Day 165. When the door to our basement opened, my eyes, accustomed to the darkness of hopelessness, were blinded for a few moments. I was dragged outside. It turned out that during the time I spent in my cage of despair, our application from a fitness tracker turned into an AI blockchain game. I hear screams of horror all around. The back-end developer is screaming the loudest. He screams so loudly that he even drowns out the demonic laughter of the product manager. They assign me the highest priority and decide to take me into development immediately.
Day 387. The back-end developer gets to me and starts writing code. He doesn’t scream anymore, only sometimes shudders and starts looking into the dark corner of the room for a long time. There’s no one in the corner.
Day 452. Today a tester came to see me. My butt hurts a lot.
Day 481. Today I was shown to the whole team for a demo. The designer burst into tears. Despite his pleas, everyone decided to roll me in my current form.
Day 482. Today I heard my product manager talking to himself in the kitchen for half an hour, turning on the tap and looking at one point.
Day 567. The VP came and said that he has a new wife and now we are an ecosystem because she likes eco-products. I am thrown into the backlog again.
Day 703. I don’t remember the last time the door to our backlog opened. The screams behind it have long since died down and I’m not sure if there is anyone there at all. Today it opened and a tester’s figure appeared in the light of the doorway. I have a bad feeling about this.