Product development trade-offs, compromises, and sacrifices

One problem with product development as an endeavor is that the vast majority of those engaged in it have never understood that it’s all about:

1. making conscious trade-offs,
2. minimizing compromises, and
3. avoiding sacrifices.

It really is not about adding all the features you can think off to an already-heavyweight product scope, or about one-upping the competition by ratcheting specs up or down by 5% or 10% compared to the predecessor or the competitors, as if in a vacuum in which any ratchet combo goes.

The result, typically? Bloated, heavy physical products with few clear trade-offs, many compromises, plenty of sacrifices, and no crystal-clear points of differentiation.

After all, betting on a new core technology requires you to rethink all the past trade-offs; and if you were never conscious of them to begin with, how likely are you to suddenly dare to do so? Making them conscious — which trade-offs the portfolio is actually making, and who owns the call — is the portfolio-discipline half of the product-management engagement.