Developing Minimum Viable Products is some of the most rewarding development work out there. We create hugely impactful projects and let inspiration and aspiration flow through our veins. In the heat of the moment, we remember to write everything down, creating vast backlogs of potential new avenues for the project.
However, most of these avenues are, in the best case, indifferent to the project, and in the worst case, they become darlings we hold on to. We get an attachment and a need to put it into the project, and it gets prioritized even though the impact is not proportional to the value it brings to the project.
Hence it is important to forget. To boldly erase stuff or throw the material as far away as is not possible to retrieve it again easily.
The truth is that when customers are brought on to the project, plenty of people will have plenty of ideas worth pursuing. And definitely, ideas that are better and more aligned with the commercial raison d’etre of the project.
Forgetting is also the often forgotten but essential aspect of learning. We need to lose focus and get rid of details detrimental to progress, whatever progress means in a given setting. We need to forget to pursue a purpose.