Scope Creep - Who Manages to Resist it?

[Mort_Lemur]

Been working on quite an ambitious Addon for Phoenix - and I have to say its looking good. (Amazing actually!)

But, I'm suffering from scope creep - I keep thinking "this feature would be nice" or "wouldn't it be good if it did that".

So I'm stuck between - "Push something out that works" and "Keep going until its bright and shiny"

What does everyone else do?

[PiLLaO]

If it's already a functional version, you can share it and gradually roll out improvements.

[azpro]

What I always do is "Push something out that works" ... but .. accidents happen

It is my own code / own server / own site / own business so I can afford to make ugly mistakes - and spend a few nights to correct .... I won't say it is the best workflow

[tessthepup]

Been working on quite an ambitious Addon for Phoenix - and I have to say its looking good. (Amazing actually!)

But, I'm suffering from scope creep - I keep thinking "this feature would be nice" or "wouldn't it be good if it did that".

So I'm stuck between - "Push something out that works" and "Keep going until its bright and shiny"

What does everyone else do?

I can totally relate to scope creep. I am also working on a game changer add-on for Phoenix that I keep adding to and have to force myself to stop and say enough is enough and save it for version 2

[Mort_Lemur]

I can totally relate to scope creep. I am also working on a game changer add-on for Phoenix that I keep adding to and have to force myself to stop and say enough is enough and save it for version 2

I totally feel your pain!

Started out simple, just a couple of files - now its 10 files or so and does everything apart from washing the dishes! (although maybe with a code tweek here or there it just maybe could....hmmmm! )

Sent you a pm with a screenshot of where I'm going with this, in the final polishing and testing phase now.

[tessthepup]

I can totally relate to scope creep. I am also working on a game changer add-on for Phoenix that I keep adding to and have to force myself to stop and say enough is enough and save it for version 2

I totally feel your pain!

Started out simple, just a couple of files - now its 10 files or so and does everything apart from washing the dishes! (although maybe with a code tweek here or there it just maybe could....hmmmm! )

Sent you a pm with a screenshot of where I'm going with this, in the final polishing and testing phase now.

I wish I was at 10 files lol. I think my add-on is about 13mb in size at the minute

[burt]

It's difficult because when you're making something, it tends to evolve and every improvement sparks another idea..I tend to post up those ideas for discussion and see which ones get any feedback. If it's none to little feedback, no one is interested so the extra feature or whatever doesn't appear until down the road (which might take months or even years, or maybe even never).

More or less, FWIW, I tend to agree with the approach of @PiLLaO - get "minimum viable product" out, and maybe iterate based on feedback.

Remember always, whatever you're building doesn't need to have all the bells and whistles right from the word go.

EG, that Product Anywhere feature.
Started off very bare bones. 2 files I think, both coded quick and dirty just to show the concept was possible.
15 pages of discussion later it has numerous extra things, each added and shipped over time.
And even now, it's still evolving.

[azpro]

Been working on quite an ambitious Addon for Phoenix - and I have to say its looking good. (Amazing actually!)

But, I'm suffering from scope creep - I keep thinking "this feature would be nice" or "wouldn't it be good if it did that".

So I'm stuck between - "Push something out that works" and "Keep going until its bright and shiny"

What does everyone else do?

Just wanted to thank you for all the addons you contributed! Did not yet test / use them but I can only imagine all the hard work you have put in.

[Mort_Lemur]

The scope continues creeping...........

I started off thinking "Ok lets produce an addon that does this" quite a lot of work, but its something I need for my site so it had to be done. Yay! I got a working version and sent it out to a few generous testers who identified some bits I had missed, mainly regarding stock levels and attributes.

So, another week embodying fixes for the reported omissions......... But, to do this I needed to add more products and attributes to my test site to allow me to initially test the fixes.

Now, whilst the native Phoenix has perfectly usable and robust methods for doing this (Thank you core team!) as I am currently Jumping Ship from a 15 year relationship with traditional OSC the layout of the attributes and product pages were a step too far for me...........

Sooooo - Produce 2 more addons, one to allow attributes and options to be added and managed from a single admin page. AND THEN to produce an addon to allow the addition and edit of products (plus add existing attributes) again from a single page.

Thats all now almost complete and the initial mod is now out again at Beta 3 for final (???) testing.......

I need to lay down for a while I think