Ever dealt with an enthusiastic Developer in your project team? The one who constantly looks for improvement in the product. These kind of developers may sometime go over the board and implement a small change without speaking with anyone because they think it would make the product better.
Cut to the next day and what have we done here, we have added,
- New source of risks
- Something beyond the project scope
- Something without the proper change management process
- Something that may require additional testing, time, cost, documentation and other resources
- Possibility of a Scope Creep like situation!
But here’s the question – if Gold Plating is a type of bad change, why does it exist?
Ever read this line somewhere – “Meet and exceed customer expectations.”
This entire mindset of how it is very important to ‘exceed’ customer expectations gives rise to Gold Plating. You might think that the customer will be delighted with you ‘exceeding’ the requirements but there is a possibility that the customer might actually be disappointed. This would also lead to the extra efforts of the project team being totally wasted
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