This post was originally published on my personal blog.
Most projects have moments in which they have new features to implement and, at the same t...
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Although I agree on the concept, I think your arguments are fitted to a service oriented team. If you work on a company that sells custom software , or at least one that customize an existing software, you'll have clients paying specifically for those features. Bugs won't even be considered by sales. That's a problem down the road for customer's support, who wont have the same importance as sales in the eyes of management (unfortunately).
I can see it happening in situations where there's little "skin in the game"; when people who are selling are not the same ones who will build it, and/or the people who are buying are not the ones who will use it.
It's definitely a sad scenario!
True, or even when the people who are selling (or delivering) are not held responsible for the after sales. Situation far more common then we'd like to admit, unfortunately.
As Devil's Advocate, I'll argue that losses due to not implementing a new feature are not that simple, if you compare not implementing it versus projected additional income of doing so. In most cases, that prediction is a fuzzy best-guess, but it still should be part of the equation -- though in many/most cases it will probably be about as fuzzy an estimate as losses due to bugs.
Hi Charles!
I also don't think it's simple - but I argue that one is not as fuzzy as the other.
A bug can be a small manifestation of a much bigger problem that can at some point stop your company from making money - for instance, a small problem in card number validation could be a problem with the card information you are sending to the payment gateway, and that could have a huge impact.
I can't imagine a situation where not having a new feature would stop you from making money, unless you are in a really early stage of a startup or something. But even then, losses due to bugs could be fatal!
If car stereo OEMs didn't implement the new features of support for Apple or Android Auto support, or if you didn't add driver support for USB 3 as a silicon vendor, or if after Google photos auto upload Apple didn't follow suit, or if when Apple supported backgrounding or new default apps and you didn't add that feature to your apps, or if you don't update your scanner software to support new barcode types, or if you don't support new industry reporting regulations, or if, or if, or if you could lose business.
I actually have a hard time thinking of a competitive market where if you don't maintain feature parity with competitors that you don't end up losing business.
Those are good examples!
But one could still argue that it doesn't matter supporting a new protocol, if your product as it is today has serious defects.
Of course, in the long run both are important, and having an obsolete product will drag you out of business. This article is only trying to help people understand the trade-offs when choosing not to at least diagnose every bug as they appear.
And the really important thing is that you actually think about it, and don't assume you know which is the right answer until you've done that thinking with the best information you can gather at the time -- which I think is ultimately what we all are saying. :)
That's it! :D
I love the Mediocristan and Extemistan ideas from NNT