The danger of overpromising
Something I’ve had to learn the hard way is to never overpromise. It is far better to not promise at all than promise something and not deliver.
Another way of saying it is: people can understand if you choose not to promise, but if you do promise and fail to meet the expectations you’ve set, they won’t be so understanding.
So, it’s best to never promise anything to an individual or a customer at all. And if you do, always check first and know you can follow through.
Don’t be like me with what I did with a past, unmentionable open-source project I worked on five years ago. I set an incredibly unrealistic expectation for myself and, of course, it failed miserably and I still have the regret of overpromising on that project even now.
Thankfully, this is one area where I have learned and improved since then.
For instance, with my time lapse app, Velocity Lapse, I’ve been very careful about promising customers regarding features and bug fixes. If I do promise a certain feature or fix, it’s usually either already completed or I have a very good idea of when it will be done. I take the stance of “better to under promise and over deliver.”
That is a much better way to do things. (Believe me on that.)