I very nearly cried when I realised I had to delete 30,000 words from my Book.
A week after I published Rolling Rocks Downhill, someone said, “You must be delighted!”
I smiled, but then I felt my face drop, and I heard myself say, “No not really.”
I didn’t burst out into tears … but I thought I might.
I’d spent 10 years writing the damned book and it was as good as I would ever get it.
The initial reviews were fab (and they still are).
And yet … I was horribly disappointed when I published it.
Here’s why:
Two months before I published, I culled 30,000 words.

That’s a LOT OF WORDS.
Good words.
I’ve still got them. They’re fantastic.
But they didn’t belong in that book and I had to KILL them.
It makes me sad, now, because, probably, no one will ever see them.
But I had to get rid of them because they didn’t belong.
They were stopping me shipping.
So I chopped ruthlessly and the book was launched within weeks, and now thousands have read it, and (I hope) I’ve changed a few lives.
Why am I sharing this?
One of the key lessons in RRD is that you must ruthlessly, brutally manage scope.
You’re chasing benefits, not features.
But: no matter how logical that is IT HURTS HURTS HURTS.
Remember this when your product owner is struggling.
What seems obvious isn’t easy.
It’s hard. It hurts.
And … it works.
