Part 1: The Feature Factory Has a Population of One

Outputs became cheap overnight. I'd ask for a deck, get one in minutes, and think, "great, now the workbook." Then the trainer guide. Then a companion handbook. Each output felt like progress.

Then I noticed I kept asking for more until I hit the session limit. I wasn't stopping because I had enough. I was stopping because the tool made me stop.

That's a feature factory. John Cutler's term describes teams that measure success by what they ship instead of what changes. I'd always explained it as an organizational problem, with HiPPOs and roadmaps full of commitments. I never expected to build one alone, with no one pressuring me but my own excitement.

What I was making was inventory. Files piled up, none validated against a real client need. Inventory costs something even when the output is free: it has to be reviewed, maintained and kept consistent with everything else.

What I do differently now: before asking for the next output, I ask what decision or outcome it serves and who will use it. If I can't answer, I don't ask.

For Product Owners: when output is cheap, the scarce resource is your judgment (the ability to make good calls) about what's worth having. A Product Backlog is a set of choices about value, and adding more items doesn't improve it.

Which shiny output have you kept asking for when you already had enough?

Coming next: why I stopped trusting polished answers.

Next in the series: Part 2, You Can't Outsource the Deciding (coming soon)

Back to the series 

Source: John Cutler, "12 Signs You're Working in a Feature Factory" (2016).