Name the job in operational terms
A useful feature should be tied to an action: approve a provider, route a request, publish a lesson, recover a user, compare a cohort, export a report, or resolve a support issue. If the feature cannot be described as work getting easier, faster, clearer, or safer, it may be decoration.
This is the product-scope version of the service-design principle in the GOV.UK Service Manual: solve a whole problem for users. A feature that improves one screen while pushing the hard part into support, email, or manual reconciliation has not earned much product surface area.
This is why product scope should involve the people who operate the system, not only the people funding it. Operators know where status gets lost, where customers wait, and where the current process creates avoidable support work.
Attach a measure before building
A feature does not need a complex analytics model, but it does need a success signal. That signal might be fewer missed handoffs, faster first response, fewer manual corrections, higher completion, lower support volume, or more consistent reporting.
Without a measure, the team cannot tell whether the feature worked or merely shipped. The measure also helps decide whether the feature belongs in the first release or should wait for evidence.
Design for the next support question
Every user-facing feature creates a support question. Who can see this record? What happened before this status changed? Can an admin reverse it? What does the customer see? Is there an export? Where does the notification go?
Answering those questions during scope keeps the feature connected to the product’s operating reality. It also prevents the common failure mode where the interface looks complete but the team has no clean way to manage the consequences.
Accessibility and observability should be part of that support thinking. WCAG 2.2 helps teams avoid excluding users through interface decisions, while Google’s SRE guidance on monitoring distributed systems reinforces the need to see what the system is doing once the feature ships.