Control
There are several methods to control feature creep, including: strict limits for allowable features, multiple variations, and pruning excess features.
Temptation of later feature creep may be avoided to some degree by basing initial design on strong software fundamentals, such as logical separation of functionality and data access. It can be actively controlled with rigorous change management and by delaying changes to later delivery phases of a project.
Another method of controlling feature creep is to maintain multiple variations of products, where features are kept limited in some variations. Because the ever-growing, ever-expanding addition of new features might exceed available resources, a minimal core "basic" version of a product can be maintained separately, to ensure operation in smaller operating environments. Using the "80/20 Rule" the more basic product variations might support the needs of about "80%" of the users, so they would not be subjected to the complexity (or extra expense) of features requested by the other 20% of users. The extra features are still available, but they have not crept into all versions of the products.
At some point, the cost of maintaining a particular subset of features might become prohibitive, and pruning can be used. A new product version could simply omit the extra features, or perhaps a transition period would be used, where old features were deprecated before eventual removal from the system. If there are multiple variations of products, then some of them might be phased out of use.
Read more about this topic: Feature Creep
Famous quotes containing the word control:
“The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces; what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
“If someone does something we disapprove of, we regard him as bad if we believe we can deter him from persisting in his conduct, but we regard him as mad if we believe we cannot. In either case, the crucial issue is our control of the other: the more we lose control over him, and the more he assumes control over himself, the more, in case of conflict, we are likely to consider him mad rather than just bad.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“There are many things children accept as “grown-up things” over when they have no control and for which they have no responsibility—for instance, weddings, having babies, buying houses, and driving cars. Parents who are separating really need to help their children put divorce on that grown-up list, so that children do not see themselves as the cause of their parents’ decision to live apart.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)