There are plenty of frightening things in project management.
Missed deadlines. Budget overruns. Unexpected technical problems.
But there’s one sentence that can send a particularly unpleasant chill down a project manager’s spine.
“Could we also…”
😂
I love working with creative people.
Especially on innovative software projects, where half the excitement is discovering what’s possible.
But sometimes the biggest threat to delivering a great product isn’t a bad idea.
It’s too many brilliant ideas arriving at exactly the wrong time.
I experienced this while working on a new technology product.
We had enthusiastic people, exciting ideas, and an initial version we were trying to deliver.
Unfortunately, the ideas were arriving considerably faster than the software.
The technical team had ideas.
The client had ideas.
Everyone had ideas.
The scope was expanding, the budget was getting nervous, and version one was starting to look suspiciously like version seven.
😂
Now, I didn’t want to discourage the ideas.
When you’re building something new, you need people who can imagine what doesn’t exist yet.
But at some point, you also need to finish building it.
So I introduced a simple question:
“Is this a now idea or a later idea?”
Not yes or no.
Not good idea or bad idea.
Just:
Now or later?
If it belonged in the current release, we could discuss what that meant for scope, cost, and delivery.
If it could wait, we’d capture it for a future version.
And that’s one of the luxuries of software development.
You can often deliver a product in stages, adding features and improvements in later releases.
Not every project has that flexibility, but when you do, it’s worth taking advantage of it.
The question helped focus our discussions and build a pipeline of ideas for future versions.
Without telling the enthusiastic ideas people to stop being enthusiastic ideas people.
Did it eliminate scope creep?
Absolutely not.
Did everyone suddenly start listening to me?
Also no.
😂
But it helped.
Because creativity and delivery shouldn’t have to be enemies.
Sometimes the answer to a brilliant idea isn’t no.
It’s not yet.
So this Halloween, spare a thought for the project managers trying to deliver version one while everyone around them is enthusiastically designing version seven.
Because sometimes the scariest thing in a project isn’t a bad idea.
It’s a brilliant idea with terrible timing.
🎃