Build, park or drop: letting go of ideas without losing face

Three boxes are enough

I sort ideas into three boxes, and I am rather fond of the fact that there are only three. Some ideas we build, because the problem is real and the timing is right. Some we park, because they are sound but premature, and those receive a condition for their return. The rest we drop. It sounds simple, and it is. The difficulty lies in being honest about which box something belongs in when you are attached to it, or when the person who suggested it is sitting across the table.

My wardrobe has the same problem

I think about it as I think about my wardrobe in spring. There are things I wear constantly, things that go into a box until winter, and a few I keep because they were expensive, or a gift, or because one day they might fit again. Products have that last pile too: features nobody uses, sustained by what they cost rather than by what they do.

A few I remember

There was a feature that gathered the most sticky notes in a workshop. Everyone adored it. Then we placed it in a prototype, and people simply clicked past it on their way to what they had actually come for. Dropping it took a single meeting, and what I remember most is the palpable relief in the room. Nobody had wished to be the first to say it.

On another occasion, a client wanted a mobile app as well, and at once. The idea was perfectly reasonable; the timing was not. The web product was not yet live, so nobody knew which tasks people would want in their pocket. We parked it until real usage could tell us, and that interval shaped the app more than any early design could have.

And more than once I have watched an AI assistant materialise on a roadmap in the very week a competitor announced theirs. The honest version is usually far smaller: the part that answers questions people are already asking. That part is worth building. The rest is a press release.

Letting go without losing face

Much of what makes dropping painless happens before the discussion begins. If we agree on what “worth building” means before anyone presents an idea, dropping one is simply an outcome. It reflects nothing on the person who brought it, and I make a point of saying so, because putting an idea on the table is a service to the team.

I also like to write a single sentence explaining why something was dropped. It may sound bureaucratic, but it spares the next team from walking into the same wall, and it makes the decision feel considered rather than personal. Parked ideas receive a trigger rather than a date. “When we have three months of genuine usage” is a plan. “Next year” is a courteous way of forgetting.

Why this matters more now

A prototype that took a sprint a few years ago now takes an afternoon. AI has made building cheap, which is largely welcome. It also means more ideas, more products and more noise than ever before, all vying for the same attention in a market that grows larger and more crowded at once.

Products also bear more weight than they once did: regulation, privacy, accessibility, integrations and budgets that must justify themselves. When almost anything can be built, building is no longer the difficult part. Choosing what to omit is, and the earlier one chooses, the less it costs.

More drops, better products

A team that drops a great deal is not indecisive. It learns quickly and doesn’t mistake effort for value, and it takes more confidence to let go of an attractive idea than to defend it.

My backlog is usually shorter than most. I have stopped apologising for that.