The big shiny thing problem: Ever wondered why there are so many obvious, lucrative use cases that megacorps never build? Why did it take so long for Facebook to build commerce or Amazon to do ads? Why hasn't Twitter built even one of the 20,000 obvious features it can build?
I call this the big shiny thing problem. Here's a thread on why this happens, and how you can avoid/mitigate thisš§µ
#1: Everyone has an opinion: Since these opportunities are obvious, everyone can understand it and has an opinion on how to do something. How to mitigate: State your opinion with high conviction early. This encourages people to agree or disagree, and drives clarity
#2: People think of the opportunity as a big monolith that must be done all at once How to mitigate: Break it down into small pieces and then land - no one will object to a small, digestible project, but most might to a large scary beast
#3: What about my scope: Everyone wants to do the big project, but not now. This varies by company but generally the big, sexy opportunity is the one no one wants to let go of. How to mitigate: Be non threatening, collaborate rather than compete, and have low/0 ego
#4: Such a complex problem: A big purpose of any product job is to reduce ambiguity. The monolith might seem hard to solve/ambiguous, but if you reduce ambiguity bit by bit and keep repeating messages, it might land better
#5: We can do this next half: Everyone will agree that these opportunities are important, what most will not realise is the urgency. By driving the urgency of 'we need to do this now', land a different message + be able to mobilise folks to solve rather than intellectualise
Does this resonate? What are some other reasons you have seen?