With vision (the why, how and what) — the big picture — crafted and written down, next step is to craft and write down the features making up the vision.
Vision, no matter how you see it, what all it comes down to is a set of features.
Long time ago, someone had a vision of creating a computer based spreadsheet… born out of a need to not use huge multiple set of connected blackboards and white chalks and manually updating each cell when a variable change cascades through some — if not all — cells on the black board spreadsheet.
One of the features — that I use a lot today — is for a cell to be programmable (i.e. it can sum, average, color change according to a rule, etc).
As a user (I know, I am using a user voice for a feature– and it is fine… just to illustrate what a feature is vis-a-vis the whole product that is going to be built), I want one of the product features to have a cell do something based on a rule that I set / program for that cell.
How about a mini trolley cart? I love apple picking with my family and friends … we pick a lot of apples… and we use the mini trolley cart. Pull-ability: a quality-related feature. It should be light or easy to pull… it should be lightweight… so that I can enjoy apple picking in great distances, up and down hills! Should be made of light material. So that it is easy to pull with the added weight of apples we’ve just picked!
There you go. Find all the features that make up the product… the envisioned product.
A feature should be completed within a program increment.
To be continued …
