How an idea becomes a feature

Last week, we asked for your suggestions on how to improve the Xbox 360 dashboard. As a result, I was trying to come up with a post to talk about how ideas can make it to features and why we can’t just ‘do it all.’ It turns out, I don’t have to do a post. Mike, who works on the Windows Mobile team, just made a post called ‘I’m Just A Feature.’ His post does a great job (much better then I could have) of explaining some of what it takes to get an idea as a feature into the Windows Mobile platform. While the Windows Mobile team is a different team, a lot of what he says is applicable to the Xbox 360, Xbox Live and software development in general.