3 Reasons Why You Should Not Gold-plate Your Projects?

Summary

Gold-plating projects by adding unrequested features is generally discouraged due to increased risk, potential harm to the product, and additional management efforts that can lead to project failure.

Abstract

Gold-plating refers to the practice of developers adding extra features to a project that were not requested by the client. This enthusiasm-driven approach can lead to the client's rejection of the added value, as it introduces several risks. Primarily, it affects the project's adherence to time and budget constraints, which are critical factors in project management. The integration of unrequested features often requires extra effort that can disrupt the project's balance and potentially harm the overall product. Moreover, additional management in areas such as communication, stakeholder relations, risk assessment, and documentation can cause effort slippage, which is not accounted for in the initial project plan. The article advises that unless there are sufficient resources and client approval, such enhancements should be avoided, aligning with Steve Jobs' philosophy of focusing on doing one thing well.

Opinions

The author suggests that gold-plating can lead to project failure due to the increased risk of not meeting time and budget constraints.
Adding unrequested features can negatively impact the product if not properly integrated.
Gold-plating necessitates additional management efforts that are beyond the scope of the agreed project plan, leading to inefficiencies and slippage.
The article emphasizes that any value-add should be treated as a change request and go through the change management process, including client approval.
The author echoes Steve Jobs' sentiment that focusing on one thing and doing it well is preferable to attempting to do everything, especially when resources are limited.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should Image: A swiss army knife as made by Wenger Source: Wikimedia Commons

Gold plating is adding extra value-adds to the project deliverables. The value-add is something that was never asked by the customer in the first place. It is never part of the formal requirement document.

However, during project execution, a developer may feel (out of enthusiasm) that adding a certain feature to his module may lead to increased performance and user-friendliness for the application in question. So, Mr.Enthusiastic codes his thoughts and integrates with the original requirement. He then communicates the client regarding the proposed process improvement and value-add to the project.

The client, however, does not show much interest and rejects the proposed value-add. Why?

There are several reasons why gold-plating the project requirements is not recommended. A Client Project Manager who strictly adheres to PMI® standard may even reject the value-add.

Some of the reasons why gold-plating is discouraged are:

Time and Money are the yin and yang of project management. More than 70% of the projects fail to achieve the constraints of time and budget. Also, the project scope and requirements are seldom achieved in agreed timelines. Therefore, adding additional effort and cost to achieve something that is not part of the requirements increases project risk.

The additional integration effort is required for the value-add. If this is not done, the value-add may harm the Product as a sum.

Additional effort in other areas of management like communications management, stakeholder management, risk management, and documentation is required which is not part of the agreed-upon efforts. This leads to effort slippage.

Do not try to do everything. Do one thing well. — Steve Jobs

Also, if its a mandate to implement a certain value-add, one must traverse the value-add through all phases of change management. It also means that one should consider implementing the value-add as a change request after the client’s approval.

Therefore, unless one has enough time, budget, and resources to perform proper integration (which is never the case in an ideal world scenario) of the goldplated deliverable, one must discourage gold plating!