Netflix’s project management acumen is impressive
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007Netflix has the most awe-inspiring development schedule in the entire industry!
I made a Netflix profile - basically a separate list of movies attached to my account - for my previous girlfriend to use. We stopped dating over two years ago. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to remove her profile, not least because seeing it in the nav menu is a constant annoyance for her successor. Netflix has this to say on that score, a message that has remained unchanged since the first time I tried:
Note the third sentence of their answer: the ability to remove a profile is scheduled for a future release. This message has been there for at least two years. Unless Netflix is flat-out lying to its customers, that means they plan their feature sets and schedule their software releases years in advance!
At most of the web companies where I’ve worked, you’re lucky if you can put together a schedule that stays intact for two months. Two years is astonishing — and for all I know, it’s three, or five, or ten years, since I don’t know how long I’ll be seeing that message. Hats off to your engineering team, Netflix. I wish I were half as disciplined and forward-thinking as you guys.