Background
I just took a class called Practical Product Management from Pragmatic Marketing, a high-tech product management / product marketing training company.

I actually took this same course 7 years ago. But after spending the last 7 years as a real life product manager / product designer / business owner, the same concepts carry new weight and meaning.

One of the most important aspects to teach product managers is to solve problems for markets, not for individual people.

N = Many. Not N = 1.

So why do politicians make the worst product managers?
They build laws for N = 1.

And the law that affects the Many is Title 26 of United States Code, the tax code.

“the tax code runs 17,000 pages and contains a mind-boggling 5.5 million words. By way of comparison, War and Peace is only 1,444 pages and the Bible checks in at 1,291 pages.”
- U.S. Representative Vito Fossella (R-NY)

There are only 3 million people in America. How could there be 5.5 million words to govern how / who / when / what money we give to Uncle Sam?

When N = 1 Happens To Products and Websites
Let’s be honest, there are way too many products and websites that look like the tax code.

And we can spot them when our first reaction is, “What the crap is this and what do I do with it?”

I like the 37 Signals approach, as documented in their ebook, Getting Real:

Make features work hard to be implemented
The secret to building half a product instead of a half-ass product is saying no.

Each time you say yes to a feature, you’re adopting a child. You have to take your baby through a whole chain of events (e.g. design, implementation, testing, etc.). And once that feature’s out there, you’re stuck with it. Just try to take a released feature away from customers and see how pissed off they get.

Don’t be a yes-man
Make each feature work hard to be implemented. Make each feature prove itself and show that it’s a survivor. It’s like “Fight Club.” You should only consider features if they’re willing to stand on the porch for three days waiting to be let in.

That’s why you start with no. Every new feature request that comes to us — or from us — meets a no. We listen but don’t act. The initial response is “not now.” If a request for a feature keeps coming back, that’s when we know it’s time to take a deeper look. Then, and only then, do we start considering the feature for real.

And what do you say to people who complain when you won’t adopt their feature idea? Remind them why they like the app in the first place. “You like it because we say no. You like it because it doesn’t do 100 other things. You like it because it doesn’t try to please everyone all the time.”

Too bad the political system virtually requires that politicians return favors creating tax code loopholes, attaching riders, building bridges to nowhere, etc.

Ten Words
God limited his commandments to only ten words, and then He said, “you shall not add nor take away from the word I am commanding you.” [paraphrased from Deuteronomy 4:2].

Guess He’s not a fan of feature creep.

What Now?
Do you need an outsider who can ruthlessly chop off parts of your “tax code?” Allow myself to introduce myself.

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