The Significance of Time, Budget and Scope in Product Development

Recognition of time, budget and scope as the three variables in product development is of

paramount importance. At the outset, it is essential to have two of the variables fixed, otherwise

we will never get the product out. Whenever someone says, they can launch a product on time,

on budget, and on scope, take it with a bucketful of salt. It almost never happens and when it

does, quality often suffers.

Ideally, which are the two variables that one should keep fixed? If you’re a product company, it

necessarily has to be time and budget, for one should never throw more time or money at a

problem. Additionally, during your product engineering phase itself, your product marketing

would have gone to the market in promoting it and it doesn’t make sense to miss the timelines.

Essentially, one needs to manage scope and not tinker with time and budget. If everything cannot

be fit within the time and budget allotted, manage the scope and don’t expand the time and

budget. This is acceptable when it comes to in-house product engineering. What if the

engineering is done by a third party service provider?

Service provider would have to agree for a timeframe, fixed budget and fixed scope, and pulling

back the scope is easier said than done in such a relationship. What does one do in such a

situation?

What we adopt as a solution is this; we prioritize the features into three sets that read as must-

have features, nice-to-have features, and the list for subsequent releases. Must-have features put

together would make a useful release and that will be the guarantee to our customers within the

agreed time and budget. Within the same budget and timeline, there would be a high probability

of incorporating a considerable number of features beyond what is provided as guarantee.

Essentially, with this model, you get a working product within the specified timelines and

budget. Though, this may not be applicable for companies that have a strict budgeting process

where they only want to go through it once, and because of which they would want to keep the

specs rigid.

Visit IVESIA’S WEBSITE Follow us at LINKEDIN and TWITTER