Too Much to Build? Here's What to Do First.

Maximize your impact by focusing on what you can control

This article is the first in a series of articles to help EdTech entrepreneurs take control of their "to-build" list.

There’s a lot on your developers’ to-build list – more than they can get done in the time they have. And a lot of what’s on that to-build list came from educators, students, and caregivers, making it very difficult for you to choose where to focus your team’s time and energy.

You want to be responsive to your customers, but it can’t all get done.

Since it can’t all get done, how do you choose what to build? How do you have the biggest impact on your customers and your business?

In this series of articles, I’m going to show you how to determine what to build to maximize the impact of the capacity you have. Rest assured, I’ve been where you are dozens of times and guided many teams through this problem to a successful solution.

It can feel overwhelming to have so much on your to-build list and be fielding all of these requests from customers – especially when you know you can’t build it all. So, before we get started...

Take a Few Deep Breaths

Recognize that while this is a problem, it is a good problem to have. Why?

Because being in this situation means you have customers who are using your product, engaging with it, and sharing ideas with you for how to make it better. Think back to the early days of your business. How does this compare? I’m willing to bet you’ve made a lot of progress since then. You’re now getting more attention from customers.

Let’s get to work on maximizing your impact with them.

What Can You Control?

There are only three levers of control that you have for your product: resources, schedule, and scope.  Project Managers refer to this as the Iron Triangle. The Iron Triangle shows the three levers of control at the vertices of the triangle, with quality in the center of the triangle.

Iron Triangle of Project Management

Resources refers to the resources you have with which to build your product. These resources are usually money, people, or both. Even raw materials or server time is translated to money. Schedule refers to the amount of time you have before you need to deliver your product. Scope refers to the amount of functionality you plan on delivering.

There are only three levers of control that you have for your product development: resources, schedule, and scope. This is known as the Iron Triangle.  

Finally, quality is represented by the area of the triangle, which shows that you cannot change one of the three levers without impacting the quality of your product. If you decrease the resources you spend and leave scope and schedule untouched, for example, you will be decreasing quality.

Identify the Right Lever for Your Situation

In order to successfully manage your to-build list, you need to determine the right lever or levers you can adjust for your situation.

Schedule

Take a close look at the product schedule to see if you have any flexibility in it. The more time you have to build your product, the more likely you are to deliver the needed scope.

You may have flexibility in your schedule if you:

• Are either not tied to academic year milestones (such as back to school) or have a lot of time until the next one occurs.

• Have not made promises to customers or investors about specific delivery dates.

• Don’t have important revenue tied to a particular delivery date.

Even if you have flexibility in your delivery dates, you may choose not to extend your dates. This is because frequent feedback from the market comes from regular deliveries, and should be used to make regular improvements to the product.

Resources

You may be able to add resources to your product if:

• You currently have significantly more revenue than you planned.

• You have satisfied investors who would be willing to make additional investments.

• You have friends, family, or personal savings you are willing to tap into as either sources of funding or human capital.

Even if you have access to additional resources, you may choose not to access them, for any of the following reasons:

• It takes time and effort to find the right people, set up their equipment, and get them up to speed.

• Adding resources may not help. As Warren Buffet said, ““You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

• You may want to see more success with your product before investing more resources.

• You don't want the potential strain on relationships (particularly relationships with friends and family) that can come when business is introduced.

Scope

You may have flexibility in scope if:

• You have not promised investors or customers specific features. Be particularly wary of anything you have promised in a written contract.

• You have a lot of requests and ideas that satisfy different users, different markets, etc.

Between schedule, resources, and scope, chances are, you have the most flexibility with scope. If you have flexibility with scope, you should almost certainly pursue this as your primary lever, since EdTech entrepreneurs can often move very quickly to take advantage of this flexibility.

Scope is often the best lever to pursue, since EdTech entrepreneurs can often move very quickly to take advantage of this flexibility.

Spend time thinking through each of the levers and ensure you are clear on the high-level possibilities for which levers can be moved for your product and which ones are firm.

Conclusion and What's Next

When you are feeling overwhelmed by the size of your to-build list, it’s critical to quickly do the following:

1. Take a few deep breaths and recognize this is a good problem to have. You are making progress as a company.

2. Recognize there are three levers you can control: schedule, resources, and scope.

3. Identify which lever or levers you can change to address your situation. The scope lever is almost always available to EdTech entrepreneurs.

Next, we will show you how to determine your optimal scope. To determine your optimal scope, you first need clarity of your product’s purpose, which is the topic of the the next article.

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