When you create a product, you’re probably discussing a lot about features. Here are a few possible questions :
Where should we put that button ?
Who should get access to that feature ?
How should we introduce that new feature (blog post, tutorials, …) ?
How should we implement that feature ?
There are probably much more questions you can ask yourself when you think you’re going to implement a feature.
However, one question that is essential and often not asked is the following one :
Should we add this new feature at all?
I think most of the time, the answer should be No.
This is because how costly features are. I have tried to set up a few questions that you can ask yourself the next time you’re thinking about a new feature, to help you balance the value/costs of a feature.
Value
- Will your customers use that feature often, or is it very useful even if it is not used very often ?
- Does your software sell better if the feature is present ?
- Will the feature benefit to many customers ?
- Are you the only one to provide that value ?
Costs
- How long will it take for you to develop that feature ?
- Are there bugs in your software that you will take longer to fix because you will be busy working on the new feature ?
- Are there pending support tickets that will still be pending because of the new feature development ?
- Will the feature you’re building increase complexity ?
- Is it easy to drop that feature if it doesn’t fit to the customers needs ?
- What will be the cost of maintaining that feature ?
- Is the new feature likely to add a security leak ?
Hope that helps !