

We have recently started using a list of questions to ask ourselves across Product, Engineering, and Design: Scope of Work Questions So: how do we plan holistically at Shortcut? When one incorporates a more holistic approach to feature planning, it provides a space to "zoom out" and proactively account for the wider scope of changes needed to support a new feature. When one primarily focuses on the new thing, it can lead to underestimating the time, level of effort, and complexity required to ship a feature to customers. When planning a new feature, it's easy to focus too narrowly on the new things to build, and to not account for the relationships to other parts of your product or technical architecture. While there are always going to be some unknown unknowns when planning a new feature, what if we could reduce the number or scope of unknown unknowns? That's where Holistic Feature Planning comes in.

Have you ever been surprised at work? Was it a delightful surprise or an unpleasant surprise?
