Jeff Veen on the perils of inertia:

“Tight deadlines and other resource constraints do the same thing. If you’re doing any amount of user research—and you better be doing at least some user research—large budgets can actually hinder you. It’s easy for Web teams to get stuck in what we call “analysis paralysis.” They have so much information that they can’t act on it. Likewise, I’m frustrated by massive projects that span multiple quarters and have hundreds of dependencies and deliverables. I’ve never once seen a project like that come in on time or never have major revisions along the way. I’m much more interested in quick wins. Have a vision for where you want a product or Web site to be in nine months, then see what you can accomplish in a couple of weeks with the staff and resources you currently have. Keep chasing down the next quick win, and eventually you’ve got significant change. This doesn’t necessarily work for every project in every company, but it’s certainly a good way to build some credibility and heal the immediate pain you may be feeling.”

In the meantime I realise I’ve been back at the BBC for two years now, and have launched just one service (BBCi Search) although I did two iterations of it… My current project has now been ongoing for one year and two months…

» DigitalWeb: An interview with Jeffrey Veen
[via paranoidfish/links]