Your Magic Spell

Your magic words as a technical manager are, “that’s out of scope”. You need to wield this spell intelligently but ruthlessly. Your team needs you to do it so you can keep their workload manageable and allow them to stay focused. Your manager needs you to do it so that they know why you can succeed.

Now, you don't want to be in the situation where you say that to a product owner right before a release. If that happens, something went wrong. Most likely, it would have to do with one or more assumptions on your part - and the product owners part - that didn't come up early enough to be resolved.

Some companies try to address this with really detailed product specifications. That can work, but it's no guarantee that missed requirements based on assumptions won't come up. I've found that a better way to prevent assumptions that lead to scope creep is close communication, fast iterations and short demos.

To me, those are some of the best aspects of Agile development. Product owners don't always know every requirement before development begins; the same way that developers don't always know how they'll solve requirements until they are into the code. Seeing running code is one of the best ways of coming to a mutual understanding of what all the problems are that a product owner is trying to solve so that your developers really understand what the goals are. It also allows for trade-offs that can help speed development. For example, it's not uncommon for developers to offer some options for difficult or time-consuming requirements that, once adopted, can speed development and still satisfy customer expectations.

I'm not a fan of blaming missed requirements on "bad communication". Go deeper with your stakeholders; take the time to try to find assumptions; talk through outcomes; ask the questions you may not want to know the answers to. By doing these things, you'll prevent yourself from getting into trouble with unexpected scope creep.