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Hello everyone. Welcome to the 5 Minutes Podcast. All of us suffer at some point in our lives from the Diderot effect. Remember the last time you went to a store to buy a new suit or a new dress? And suddenly you recognize that with that new suit, your shoes, they become so ugly, maybe out of fashion. And then you buy the shoes. And then when you buy the shoes and the suit, you notice that you know your hair is not in the best shape. And then you go to the hairdresser, arrive at the hairdresser, and have your hair cut. But then you look at that maybe good makeup will make a big difference. And suddenly, you became trapped by the video effect. The effect comes from the French philosopher Denis Diderot. That was the first one to formulate about that. And it's very popular with consumers and also with people that have a compulsive desire for shopping. But in this podcast, I want to talk about these effects in our project life, how many times we were in a project, we were making the sprint or trying to build new software, trying to build a new product, and suddenly we got trapped with Let's do a new feature and let's do this. And then suddenly, our project that was supposed to address one specific need of our customer or one deliverable and was expected to be delivered in two or three sprints becomes something of 20 sprints, expanding far more. And then people do not understand how everything started. And this is what I want to talk to you about. So I want to share with you three tips, three very simple tips that will help you to avoid being trapped.
The first step is to eliminate the trigger. Every single effect did a ripple effect. It starts with a trigger. Something happens that creates a lack of synchronicity between everything. And then you start buying things. For example, maybe can be you bought a new house, and suddenly when you put your furniture inside a house, you notice that all the furniture looks very bad in the new house, and then you don't know what to do, and then you start buying new furniture. So this is a very simple example of this fact. So you need to eliminate the trigger. Let me give you a practical example. Let's suppose that you are planning your next sprint, for example, and then someone says, Oh, look, the software we are using to develop or to code this it's now in version 2.0. So from X to x 2.0, and then suddenly everybody becomes so excited, or 2.0 is so cool, everybody is implementing 2.0, and suddenly you just decide to implement 2.0. And then three days later, someone to say Oh, but oh. To use the 2.0 version, we need to update also our database. And when we update the database and all the coding, you know, our interface will become ugly. It's like having a super engine with, you know, a crap shell. So we need also to improve the interface, and suddenly you got trapped. And I'm not telling you that you should never update, please. No. And this drives me to the second point.
Does it fit in first? When you decide to update to version 2.0 in your project, what is the first question? It's not about whether it is cool, is it nice? But does it fit in with that specific strategy? I have to address the need for that specific product because maybe you are updating to version 2.0, but in the end, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It will only add workload to the team, and it will not change anything in the business case or the need of the customer. So this is the second point. So the first one, eliminate the trigger, and the second one check. Does it fit in? Because many times, for example, if I take a house, my new house and I buy a super cool sofa, the first thing I need is, does it fit in? Because maybe it's a super cool sofa, but these will act as a trigger for me to overspend and spend a lot of time and money to renew my whole house. Look, if any of you did renovation in your house, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You start fixing the sink in your kitchen, and you wind up. The sailing of your bedroom. It's like that every single time. And this drives me to the third and final point. You need to limit spending and limit spending in terms of time and money. It's not only money; for example, but you also need to limit how I do, for example, in software development with my team, for example, when I need to update something on my website, of course, I want to avoid a trigger.
I want to make sure it fits in, and I want to limit spending. Do you know what I do? Many times I say, Look, I need some improvements on this page. I would love to have these, this, and this, but I want you to limit your effort to 4 hours or to one day. What is the best you can do with one day? Because otherwise, if I don't limit this spending, do you know what will happen? One week later? I noticed that the developer was developing a new version of my website, and I said, No, it's not what I want. I want just this page. So, of course, I'm just creating just an example for you to understand. You really need to limit the spending. So this is why, for example, on my work day, I always do a time box. I want to spend 45 minutes doing this. I want to spend half an hour doing this because if I don't limit, there is a chance that I will be trapped by the Diderot effect and the digital effect not only in consumption but also in scope creep in the increase in the scope of what I'm doing up to the point that I spend all the time to deliver pretty much the same thing that I was able to deliver in 10% of the time. So think about that. It's a very nice concept and something that you must keep in mind if you want to really deliver sharp things on time and on budget. I hope you enjoy this podcast next week with another 5 Minutes Podcast.
