The Retrospector

One of the crucial points in a project is near the end where you have to decide to simply wrap things up enough to deliver. The ability to enhance the product forevermore can creep into your scope so easily if you let it. (Scope Creep) Sometimes it gets to the point where you’ll be on an endless timeline of development where you can’t just finish it and get the product shipped.

What I’d like to talk about in this article are some of the things to watch for to make sure you can get your product delivered to your customer. Such things include avoiding scope creep, properly comparing requirements with personal opinions, and follow-through on making sure your product gets to a deliverable state.

Scope Creep

This is a subject that probably has enough issues that it could be an entire series of posts. What I think you should take away from this for today’s article is simply that allowing the scope to broaden or change too much will prevent you from every being able to clamp down on the “moving target” deliverable. You will spend so much more time trying to factor in new features or implementation approaches for a dynamic scope than ever wrapping up the ones you currently have on the table that you will never get the original requirements in a deliverable state.

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Recently, I stumbled onto a couple of articles that really caught my curiosity. Steve Pavlina’s How to Become an Early Riser and How to Get Up Right Away When Your Alarm Goes Off really made me read almost every word in each.

“Can I do that?” “I can do that.” *yawn* Hmmm. “Maybe I’ll try that tomorrow.”

I can totally relate to what he’s talking about there in both articles. So the last 2-3 weeks I’ve decided to give myself an honest test as to whether or not I can actually follow through with becoming a morning person.

Applying to my own schedule

A rule of thumb that I’ve known for a long time is that it only takes a few weeks to really kick a habit or make a new one. I don’t know where I picked up that piece of information, but it’s always held pretty true for me. I figured if I can get through a couple solid weeks of waking up really early on a schedule like Steve pointed out, I shouldn’t have any trouble sticking with it for the long run.

So every morning, between 5:00am and 6:00am, I’m up and at ‘em like releasing a coiled spring. For 3 weeks (not including a weekend out of town) I’ve been hopping out of bed and mosying down to the basement for some time on the computer, and the occasional workout on the home gym.

It’s actually working out much better and easier than I thought it would. I’ve been pretty skeptical about being able to switch from my good ol’ high-school and college-day schedule that’s been embedded in my subconscious somewhere for years. (I’m very much a night person and can stay up really late on a whim without any trouble.)

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