The cost of publicly exposing your feature launch dates

There is an assumption that the cost of missing a publicly announced feature launch timeline is always greater than the sum of the benefits accumulated by exposing your launch intentions (roadmap et al.). Or that the value of keeping aforementioned feature-launches secret see you accrue market competition value, etc.

I’m afraid I have to disagree, and I believe, on average, you are better off being transparent with your customer and the market in general about what features you are about to deliver.

If you meet your deadlines and deliver on the promised scope, you allow your customer and market to plan along and attach themselves to your timelines. There is immense value in this, which is rarely comparable to the Apple-esque ta-da type launch, which sees excitement on the day but robbed everybody in your organization, customers included, an opportunity to take advantage of them knowing the future.

If you don’t meet your deadlines, you can and should communicate often and clearly to all your constituents. The same goes for any change of scope. Missed deadlines or lesser functionality than promised is obviously not optimal, and transparency is not a carte blanche to over-promise and underdeliver. However, this should be the exception and not the rule, and the rarer this is, the more I see a willingness to forgive.

However, as you construct your own value function (which might well be different from my silly and straightforward matrix), I think you’ll see that the cost of a missed public deadline is smaller than the cost of secrecy and that the value of continued transparency is bigger than the surprise launch.

*This sentiment is a cousin to the idea of being comfortable future-selling.