Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  The mistakes of version 1.0 (26 Nov 2004) The problem is in expecting a single effort to fulfill a vision. A single battle rarely wins a war, and a single release rarely wins a market, transforms an industry, or makes a division or start-up financially viable. Instead it takes a sequence of well executed developments towards the same high level vision, the same high level goal. When too much pressure is placed on a single first release, there’s rarely anyone still sane enough to pick up the flag and lead the charge for the inevitable version 2.0. As much as version 1.0 projects can be sprints, whoever is defining the strategy should be thinking of it as a relay race, a sequence of sprints, and not a single solo effort. This means that wise management expands the vision out across multiple releases, looking at least one effort past the current one. It might only be a sketch, or an outline, but the team should know that there is a strategy that extends beyond the short term drama. It should be clear in the minds of anyone in management that the fulfillment of the vision will come only with strong solid and continual progress: not one wave of work (Though there are rare exceptions). For the start-up CEO or team leader, thinking this far ahead may be impossible. There may be 3 or 4 scenarios that are equally probable for what comes next. But if it were me, I’d tell my team what they were. Not every day, or every hour, but I’d want to periodically provide status about where the ship is headed after we arrive at the current destination. If I have a reasonable strategy for facing uncertainty, and I share it, they'll tend to follow. Article URL: http://www.uiweb.com/issues/issue36.htm Read 40 more articles from UI Web sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: Cleaning up for the housekeeper or why it makes sense to do both Expert Review and Usability Testing     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy