Here’s a realistic hypothetical situation for you, the Salesforce consultant.
The build phase of the MVP is complete. Internal testing, user acceptance testing (UAT), and training is done. The client is overall happy with the results and is excited to using it. You are ready to deploy to production at any time.
You’re now having a conversation with the client, in order to decide the exact deployment date. During the meeting, the executive sponsor announces the go-live needs to be delayed until the next quarter. There is a legitimate reason for doing this: another higher priority task needs their attention for now.
Your project manager is furious, since they want the project to end as soon as possible. But you keep your cool, and understand that priorities can change along the way. You may say something like, “No problem. We can easily put things on ice for a few months and then defrost when you’re ready”.
Now the executive sponsor asks, since the project is delayed by 3 months, can we add more functionality? You know, to make the MVP even better! Let’s pickup some user stories that were slated for phase 1 or 2 and do them now.
In this situation, what would be your response and why?
The takeaway
A colleague of mine was in this exact same situation recently. This probably happens more often than it should, or at least similar versions of it. Knowing how to react to it will be useful to you.