scoping-and-cutting

What this skill does

# Scoping & Cutting

**Category:** Product Management

**Source:** https://refoundai.com/lenny-skills/s/scoping-cutting

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Scoping & Cutting | Refound AI

Lenny Skills Database     SKILLS  PLAYBOOKS  GUESTS  ABOUT               SKILLS  PLAYBOOKS  GUESTS  ABOUT                     Product Management   15 guests | 19 insights

Scoping & Cutting  Scoping is the art of fitting ambitious ideas into finite time. The best product teams don't estimate how long features will take - they set a fixed time budget and design solutions that fit within it. Aggressive cutting isn't about settling for less; it's about finding the smallest slice that delivers real value.

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Read Guide

The Guide  6 key steps synthesized from 15 experts.

1 Set an appetite, not an estimate  Instead of asking 'how long will this take?' ask 'how much time are we willing to spend on this?' This flips the dynamic. With a fixed time budget (an 'appetite'), you design a version of the solution that fits. This forces creative constraint and prevents scope from expanding indefinitely.

Featured guest perspectives

"We instead have appetites. And our appetite for any individual feature is no more than six weeks. Essentially that's our budget we're willing to spend. I'm only willing to spend six weeks in any feature. So we have to figure out the simplest, most effective version of that to get that done within six weeks."

— Jason Fried    "We're going to go the other way around and we're going to say, what is the maximum amount of time we're willing to go before we actually finish something? How do we come up with a idea that's going to work in the amount of time that the business is interested in spending?"

— Ryan Singer        2 Build the scooter, not the axle  An MVP should be a functional, end-to-end version of a smaller value proposition - not an incomplete piece of a larger one. If you're building a car, don't build just the wheels and axle. Build a scooter first - a complete, usable product that solves a smaller job. Then iterate to bicycle, motorcycle, and eventually car.

Featured guest perspectives

"Build the scooter, not the axle. So if you're trying to build the minimum viable product for a car, don't build just the wheels and the axle, build the scooter first. And then from there, you build the bicycle, and the motorcycle, and then the car."

— Eeke de Milliano    "MVP is simply for whatever the hypothesis is that we're trying to test, what is the most efficient way to get the validation we need about whether a hypothesis is true or not?"

— Eric Ries        3 Cut the list in half, then half again  Founders and product teams consistently overestimate what's 'minimum' for an MVP. The first tip is simple: write out all the features you think are necessary, cut the list in half, then cut it in half again. Build that. You'll learn more from shipping something small than from planning something comprehensive.

Featured guest perspectives

"The first tip is, write out the list of features that are necessary in your MVP. Cut it in half and cut it in half again and build that. Honestly, if you just do that, that's really not that bad."

— Eric Ries    "We really resist the urge to do the big V1. And I think this is... a lot of times when we're exploring something we will say, okay, well, that's cool, how do we strip away a bunch of stuff and figure out what our core hypothesis is? And then, just ship that thing first as a V1."

— Jackson Shuttleworth        4 Use deadlines as a forcing function  Hard time-boxes force teams to prioritize ruthlessly. Set a fixed deadline (like a major event or earnings call) and cut scope to fit the time rather than extending the date. This removes theoretical discussions and focuses energy on what truly matters. A deadline 'trap' is one of the most effective scoping tools.

Featured guest perspectives

"I really love using the deadline trap and it makes you focused... It removes all the theoretical discussions that people have and things like that."

— Daniel Lereya    "If we say we're going to give it six weeks and we give it seven or eight or nine or 10, then we're not really giving it six weeks, we're giving it 10, then we don't really have a system... If there's any work that's left over... we're at our time limit, it almost certainly dies."

— Jason Fried        5 Kill projects that aren't on track  Maintain the integrity of your time constraints by letting projects 'die' if they can't be completed within their allotted window. This prevents never-ending work and the demoralization of projects that drag on indefinitely. If a project fails to ship in its cycle, return it to the shaping phase to identify what was missed.

Featured guest perspectives

"If a project is not on track to actually finish after the six weeks, we're just going to cancel it and rethink... we're not going to keep reinvesting in something that we don't understand. So, let's take this out of build mode and bring this back into shaping mode."

— Ryan Singer    "We added into our product process a notion that we might pivot or cut from stuff that we put on our roadmap because it felt like once it was on the roadmap, it had to be done, and that's just not smart."

— Paige Costello        6 Use Wizard of Oz testing before building  Before investing engineering resources, validate your value proposition with manual 'Wizard of Oz' testing. Use WhatsApp groups to simulate automated features, Typeform for quick feature validation, or interns coordinating manually. This lets you test conversion rates and value props without building anything.

Featured guest perspectives

"It's really this Wizard of Oz experience. We don't have to build anything. I coordinated with a bunch of interns and we were able to validate some of the value prop and conversion rates that we would expect in a subscription service."

— Crystal W    "The power of having a laughably small MVP for something... In the beginning it was truly, basically, a spreadsheet, and phones, and that was it. Even that... not only had tremendous impact... but also gave us so much information about we actually needed to build that was going to be helpful."

— Zoelle Egner

✗ Common Mistakes

Using estimates as outputs instead of time budgets as inputs - this lets scope expand indefinitelyBuilding components (the axle) instead of complete small products (the scooter)Extending deadlines when projects run over instead of cutting scope to fit the timeAdding 'bells and whistles' to a V1 to ensure it wins - this prevents you from testing the core hypothesisTreating roadmap items as commitments that must be done rather than options that can be cut     ✓ Signs You're Doing It Well

Teams instinctively ask 'what can we cut?' rather than 'how long will this take?'You ship complete, usable products within fixed time windows rather than incomplete piecesFailed cycles result in better scoping next time, not demoralized teamsYou can describe the specific hypothesis each MVP is testingProjects either ship on time or get killed and reshaped - nothing drags on indefinitely

All Guest Perspectives

Deep dive into what all 15 guests shared about scoping & cutting.

Anton Osika 1 quote

Listen to episode →

"A lot of jargon that I like to use to emphasize what we should be striving for is building a minimum lovable product and then building a lovable product and then building an absolutely lovable product. So I took that jargon with me in the company name."  Tactical:  Aim for 'lovability' rather than just 'viability' in early versionsIterate from Minimum Lovable to Absolutely Lovable

View all skills from Anton Osika →

Crystal W 1 quote      "It's really this Wizard of Oz experience. We don't have to build anything. I coordinated with a bunch of interns and we were able to validate some of the value prop and conversion rates that we would expect in a subscription service."  Tactical:  Use WhatsApp groups to manually simulate auto