What to not do!

When creating a vision for any product, we define ‘how’ to achieve the ‘what’ with painstaking effort. This activity may create a crystal clear understanding of the scope of the product, albeit it does not tell us, what NOT to do.?

We are so focused on our new idea, that we contemplate only what it should do and do not emphasise what it shouldn’t do. While it’s great to have a solid foundation, it’s also important to know what not to include in it.?

If we do not define the out-of-scope, we are in danger of constantly adding requirements that often result from internal brainstorming or feedback from a closed environment. The bloated scope may not even be relevant to the real-world user and also eat up on the resources that should be focused to execute the vision. This increases the time taken to go-to-market. A delay in the ultimate release could potentially harm your business and its monetisation.??

The remedy is to clearly understand what NOT to scope for design and development. The clearer the stakeholders about the features that are not necessary for the release the more efficient the release.?

Defining the out-of-scope is simple when the below pointers are kept in mind:?

1. The purpose of the release being scoped?
2. Any feature/ functionality that does not fulfil that purpose
3. Any nice to have feature/ functionality that does not fit in the allocated budget and timeline