There are many stakeholders
involved in every new product launch.
Each stakeholder wants something
and often that something
adds costs to the product.
If you, as the project manager,
said ‘yes’ to every request,
you’d have serious cost creep
(or as they call it
with projects – gold plating).
Then either the price has
to be increased
or margins are squeezed.
So a big part of project management
is managing these special requests.
How I do it
is ask the requester
if the number of units sold
will increase by, at least, the cost/effort
of the special request.
If that special blue
marketing wants for the cap
costs 20% more than the standard blue,
will having that color
sell 20% more units?
If the marketer says ‘yes’,
I ask for that in writing
(forcing her to think twice
about her answer)
and I’ll then consider the special request.
If she says ‘no’
than she is saying ‘no’ to her own request.
There are no hard feelings.
Manage your special requests.
Keep your products as simple as possible.