(Or, yet another opportunity to use the iPod as an example.)

In his latest post, Requirements, shmequirements Forrester’s new Product Management Tool analyst asks “How big a collection of functionality should a requirements tool embrace?”

The canonical answer, based on everything we know about successful products (including, of course, the iPod) is “less than we think.” Products that do more tend to do it less well than products that do less. On the other hand, you do have to make sure you do enough. The 80% solution is often good enough, but the 60% solution usually is not.

Jason Fried and 37 Signals are the current acolytes of this “less is better” approach. They’ve even written a (small) book about it.

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