The Feature Idea Gauntlet
Moving from: Unconstrained Ideation -> Rigorous Evaluation -> Product Roadmap
As the technical co-founder & CTO of cosmik.network (updated landing page forthcoming), I constantly find myself in tension with new and interesting ideas my co-founders come up with regarding possible features for the app (or future apps and services we might get around to building).
It’s a difficult place to be in. On the one hand, I typically love to explore ideas. It’s quite fun and exhilarating to imagine what is possible! On the other hand, my engineering brain immediately starts contextualizing the ideas within the existing software architecture we have and I start estimating how much work would be required to implement it. One idea can sometimes equal an estimated few months of development work. Yikes.
I always find myself coming back to the mantra: ideas are free, execution is expensive.
Much of this thinking is motivated by too much time spent building out complex features that no one ends up using. Of course, there is a balance here. A well designed architecture allows for extension of features with minimal to no changes to anything else. But we don’t design modular architectures so we can arbitrarily add features more easily. We design modular architectures so that we can validate hypotheses sooner and deliver value faster. Features are means to such ends.
What I’ve realized is that we are lacking a process that lets us move from exploring ideas in unconstrained settings to rigorously evaluating their worthiness of ending up in the product roadmap. To this end, I’ve come up with a set of questions, an “idea gauntlet”, that every idea should pass through. This is an initial list to which I welcome feedback!
How confident are we that this idea addresses a real need that will increase traction with new and existing users? What evidence do we have?
Approximately how long would it take to implement this idea? How long is too long? At what point should we pull the plug if it’s taking too long?
Would it be appropriate to simply explore the feature idea with designs and write ups and share that publicly (as talks, technical blogs, social posts, etc), not actually implementing it?
Is there a significantly simpler version of the idea that can get us 80% of the possible value for 20% of the effort?
Are you okay if this idea never sees the light of day?
Which other features on the roadmap are we willing to delay/remove in place of this new one?
If the idea makes it to the end of this gauntlet, it’s probably a pretty solid idea!
I’m looking forward to testing this process out and see how it changes the way we balance ideas with execution priorities.
What’s the intention behind this q “Are you okay if this idea never sees the light of day?”