Creeping Elegance

Over my career, I have worked on a number of project teams and managed many project from concept to customer. I have observed even more projects from the seat of a stakeholder and manager. At some point, I will share a number of keys to successful project management. Today, I want to share a video that demonstrates one of the key reason projects fail - creeping elegance. I have seen teams fall into this trap many times. It can happen to teams with very experienced leaders as well as rookies. It occurs at varies times during projects. Even teams with very well defined objectives fall into this trap. It often it happens after developing detailed specifications. What happens? The team 'discovers' a number of opportunities to 'improve' the design. By the time they realize what has happened, cost have spiraled out of control and the scheduled launch has become an impossibility.

While reading a few blogs today, I ran across a video on Seth Godin's blog. I think this video demonstrates creeping elegance - so I thought I would share it.