It's thrilling to launch a new tech product or service, not just for the tech team members who will create it but also for team members who will use, market, and/or sell it. Getting input from a variety of stakeholders — particularly end users — can definitely lead to a stronger tech product. However, it can also lead to scope creep.
It's all too easy for tech executives and project managers to cross the fine line between gathering and using useful feedback and attempting to incorporate every item from every stakeholder's wish list into a tech project. While it’s important that those who hold unique insight are heard, it's equally crucial to set and uphold clear boundaries to prevent a tech project from veering off course. In this article, thirteen members of the Forbes Technology Council, including our Co-founder and CEO Jay Goldman, explain the strategies they advise for preventing scope creep on a project and share why these methods are effective. Jay's contribution:
There’s a great collaborative workshop—The $100 Game—you can use to prioritize input while avoiding scope creep. Make a list of everything you could do. Give everyone ten “$10 bills” so they can “buy” their priorities. They can drop $100 for one item or spend $10 each on 10. Tally up the piles to find out what’s really important. Pro tip: Use different color “bills” for each job function if you want an extra data dimension.
Read the article here.
Frequently asked questions
What is the $100 Game for prioritization?
A prioritization workshop in which every stakeholder gets ten imaginary $10 bills to spend across a list of everything the project could do. Someone can put all $100 on one item or $10 on ten. Tallying the piles shows what the group actually values, which turns a wish list into a ranked scope. Jay Goldman shared it in Forbes as a way to prioritize input without letting scope creep in.
How does the $100 Game prevent scope creep?
Because it makes trade-offs explicit and visible. Feedback from many stakeholders, especially end users, improves a product, but adding every request derails it. Forcing people to spend a fixed budget converts opinions into priorities, and the result is a scope the group chose together rather than one imposed by the project manager.
How can you see which stakeholder groups want each feature?
Give each job function a different color of bills. Goldman's tip: when the piles are tallied, the color mix on each item shows which functions want it, so a feature that only engineering funded reads differently from one every group backed.
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