Trimming The Fat Off Your Project

Often times clients that come to me do so with a long list of "must have" features that just HAVE to be in the project. However, after an initial consultation it becomes obvious that those "must have" features actually boil down to fluff that does not further the goal of the project.

A couple of examples:

• Wanting extensive member profile features when the project focus is not on the profile
• Complex ways of editing and dealing with data
• "Splitting" up functionality between different parts of the application
• Introducing many on/off, active/inactive flags

By far, the profile features such as comments, ratings, picture uploads show up the most. This is due to social networking and the belief that a user won't use a particular service if it doesn't have a "Web 2.0" profile.

Reality is different. Users aren't going to bother with yet another profile, comment, rating, and picture system. They don't want to set their status, or add friends. They just want to use your application and make sure it does what you said it would.

So, as a client..look at your feature list and ask yourself. Does this particular feature move the project forward? Is it relevant to what you are trying to achieve with the project? If it isn't, then take a pen and cross it out. Doing this will make your projects get completed faster, with less bugs and even within your alloted budget. Imagine that! Your users will appreciate it too.

Or just hire Felecan to go through your project and make the necessary feature trimmings.

Posted on December 2, 2008

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