Feature Creep (n)
'fē-chər ‘krēp\

What happens when you lack real project managers, and product managers assume the role of project managers, but are still primarily focused on the product, and not the project.

My most recent project at work was to build a subscription and billing system. Well, originally it was a system to store and process credit cards. Then we realized we might as well go all out and build a system to manage our users’ subscriptions, invoice them monthly, and process automatic payments.

My original estimate to store and process credit cards - 2 weeks to build and test. (Have I mentioned I’m an overly optimistic person when it comes to estimating the scope of a project?) Then when we decided to build a subscription and billing system, it went up to 4 weeks. I felt I could get it done in 3, but decided to say 4 weeks just to be safe based on past experience, 10 years worth of it.

Well… it took 6 weeks, and needless to say, the last 3 weeks were pretty stressful, and in regular project time, probably accounted for 6 weeks in itself :) What happened??? Well, where do I start? The product definition kept changing, and seemingly simple, but complex to implement, features were added/updated every other day. I suddenly had to account for variable billing cycles in subscriptions, that were still being invoiced monthly, and the product pricing structure suddenly needed to account for discounts, and variable pricing based on duration of contract. New rules were added around when upgrades and downgrades are allowed to happen, and how overage fees get charged.

Were these changes necessary? Yes! Could we have known in advance about what needed to be built exactly? Yes! Were there things that weren’t really necessary, but nice to haves that could have been postponed? Yes! Could the Product team have communicated these requirements in a better fashion? and in a more timely manner? Yes! Could I have pushed back at product about the non-necessities, and could I have communicated the impact on the project timeline in a better manner? Yes! Did we badly need a Project manager? YES!

Project Management, when done well, is more like a form of performance art where you get to balance the product designer’s pursuit of perfection against project timeline, resource availability, and technical feasibility. Except there are no artist types here performing. Instead, a professional (a Project Manager for the still clueless) who is meticulous about tracking the details. And when I say tracking the details, I don’t mean someone who is constantly nagging you about the status of your task. That is the end result of a project manager failing to cover all the bases at the beginning stages of a project.

A good project manager ensures that you don’t have to be nagged about the status as long as you are properly doing the job you committed to. And s/he does this by tracking and accounting for all the things at the beginning of the project and by setting proper expectations. Of course, no project can be that thorough with requirements right at the beginning, and there will definitely be feature and change requests along the project’s lifetime. But with a project manager, these requests will be “managed” rather than “forced.” The project manager will act as the whip, and make sure that stuff gets done when needed, and stuff gets delegated till later when not needed right away.

I used to be a proud member of the camp that felt Project managers were just an overhead, and that good Product Managers, and Developers are enough to run a successful project. But now I see how hard it is to balance a stool when the third leg is missing. Basically, to sum up this rant… a dedicated Project manager is a must in every project. It doesn’t have to be Full Time Hire. Just someone with a whip whose only task in a project is to manage its timeline.