When less is more...

It was with interest that I scanned the list of essays in 37Signals founders', Jason Freid and David Heinemeir Hansson's, new book on modern work life: Rework

The section on competitors caught my eye and as a product professional the essay entitled “Underdo your competition” piqued my interest. The basic hypothesis of the essay is that it is futile to enter into a “features arms race” with your competition. This “following” approach to product development is costly and time consuming and doesn’t guarantee product success.

The wisdom of avoiding feature for feature duels with competitors is well established in product circles. While duelling doesn't guarantee product success, it does guarantee bloated sprawling products which are costly to support and maintain and that users are likely to find increasingly difficult to navigate to do the things they really need to get done.

New feature requests should be carefully weighed and evaluated with a healthy dose of circumspection. When considering new features it is always helpful to have the research metrics on feature use top of mind. The Standish Group’s 2002 Chaos Report on software project success and efficiency indicates that 45% of features developed are never used, while 19% are rarely used. So a whopping 64%, nearly two thirds of software features written are rarely or never used! Unfortunately more recent reports show these numbers looking worse rather than better.

In essence only 20% or one fifth of software features produced are frequently used. Ouch!

While Fried’s assertion that a features arms race is no way to go about developing a successful software product is nothing new, his proposed alternative is interesting:

"So what do you do instead? Do less than your competitors to beat them. Solve the simple problems and leave the hairy, difficult, nasty problems to the competition. Instead of one- upping, try one- downing. Instead of outdoing, try underdoing."

The resurgence in popularity of fixed gear bicycles over their complex and maintenance intensive multi-gear counterparts and the rapid market success of the “Flip” point and shoot camcorder that has almost no settings, options or extras are cited as examples of how this approach can work.

There is something in the essence of Fried’s message that resonates because it is a message we have been hearing from our customers and our market for some time – “Just give us a solution that solves our most pressing and pervasive problems and does it well”.

It is this philosophy that has helped guide KnowledgeTree’s approach to product development. It’s the reason we have focused on building a solid document management system that is easy enough for business users to install and use and does not require IT involvement to maintain, or expenditure on implementation consultant fees. It’s why we are obsessed with making our desktop tools easy to use and ensuring they can run in Windows, Linux and Mac environments with no extensions, add-ons or different versions required.

It’s also why KnowledgeTree doesn’t do web content management. For those customers who do have this need, our ecosystem offers some great integrations with leading open-source web content tools. For the majority who don’t, we avoid the bloat.

In a world of ever increasing complexity it seems inevitable that lightweight point-solutions will find their place in the sun. Gartner research validates this, indicating that through 2012 60% of customers in the mid-market will select “best-fit” solutions from smaller vendors over Tier 1 providers. A focussed solution is also likely to help you avoid ending up in Standish’s nasty red and purple sector wondering where to find your content.

I am sure that document management software was the furthest thing from Robert Browning's mind when he penned those immortal words, but sometimes less really is more.