How Long Does It Take?

Big enterprise and startup founders often commit the same mistake: they have vision and a budget and now want to know how long and how much will it take to build it. They shop around. They compare teams. They want the team they select to behave like a giant function backed by decades of experience. Don’t sacrifice outcomes for your comfort The requirements go in. Out comes a timeline, a cost estimate, and a series of milestones. This is comforting. The buyer knows what they will receive. The team knows what it must build. Everyone can track whether the project is on schedule. The requirements may be incredibly well stipulated. The estimate may be honest. The team may execute perfectly. None of that proves that X solves Y. Consider a clinic with too many missed appointments. That is problem Y. The clinic owner decides that the solution is a mobile app. That is X. The requirements include accounts, patient profiles, appointment calendars, push notifications, rescheduling, payments,…