Programming/Design Docs/Out of Scope

What does it mean to be Out-of-Scope?

One of the major causes of delay in software development is scope creep. Scope creep is when you start with a given set of requirements but as you start developing, you start thinking of something small that would be nice to have. Then another and another until the next thing you know the project is twice the size and the deadline has been pushed back so far, you think the project may never end. One of the ways to combat this is to write down the new features as you come up with them so that you have a record of them but explicitly mark them as out of scope. This doesn't mean that you'll never get to them - just that for this project, they will not be implemented.

As mentioned in the Requirements section, you won't get the requirements "right" the first time. Sometimes you find something that really might be an important addition for this iteration. It is fine to move things from Out-of-Scope, as long as the client is fine with either: a) swapping out a different requirement, or b) extending the time necessary to build based on the design. Unfortunately, nothing comes for free!

Example

Let's take look at our blog post export feature. Some other nice-to-haves might include:

• exporting in other formats, like Markdown
• exporting to some sort of cloud storage, like Google Drive or S3
• automatic backups, either to disk or to cloud storage

The client may decide that one or more of these should be a part of the MVP, and that's fine. As I mentioned, this will either have to be in place of an existing requirement or it will extend the deadline.