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Feature parity

Regardless of whether you are replacing an existing system or planning to compete with other systems, the idea of feature parity is equally dangerous. By making the feature set of the other system your baseline you raise risk and reduce opportunities in the following ways:

  • Moving target The system you are copying is often subject to change. By setting the expectation that the new system will copy the old one you make it necessary to copy any new features along with the existing ones.

  • Features are copied regardless of value Many features in the system being emulated will probably provide limited value. Feature parity encourages a mindset where features are included regardless of value.

  • New ideas drown in old ones The task of matching the other system is so daunting that any new ideas tend to be discarded.