I’v been building software products for a while. As someone who is responsible for the product, my day job is usually a mix of all or some of the following
- Discussing and understanding a problem
- Figuring out the best solution, figuring out a ‘release-worthy’ solution.
- Cutting down the scope (Note: It’s always, always scope cutting. Never “lets-do-more”)
- Documenting and communicating feature expectations
- Documenting and communicating design expectations (usually in context of the release)
- Trimming down stuff in the wireframes
- Trimming down stuff in the visual design
- Trimming down engineering scope during the release cycle
- Reviewing the pending bugs list
- Prioritising and picking the most impactful bugs
- Reviewing user tickets
- Prioritising the ones that need immediate replies.
- Figuring out what meetings to attend (….if at all. Ideally none) and prioritising the most impactful ones
Most of the action items on the list involve trimming things down, picking the right items to work on or not doing something.
After a point this becomes second habit. You start noticing patterns where you see potential scope creeps happening in the future. You start identifying parts of the features that need more detailing. You start seeing flows where the communication isn’t clear and the users would potentially not understand it properly. You start noticing the edge cases where the magnitude might be larger.
Some of these things, eventually start becoming second nature, since I’m on it all the time. So much that a deliberate explanation or documentation is no longer needed since the feature scope has been reduced to it’s viable minimum. And eventually some of the things start happening naturally, where less obvious attention is needed.
Like it’s almost invisible.
There are a lot of books written on habits and how they shape you, and how you can shape your habits to your benefit.
I noticed a similar pattern in the products, tools and services that we use. They become so entangled with your life that a deliberate action is no longer needed to use them. Simple things like a hammer, a remote control, a keyboard, a touchscreen.
All the tools that we use daily, are so pervasive in our lives that they become 2nd nature to us.
And that makes me think — at what point does anything become a habit? At what point does a tool, or a product start becoming 2nd nature to us? How many iterations / usage does it take? How many days/hours need to be put in so that good habits do form?
And how do we make good habit forming, a habit.
