What are some techniques to use when you see this happening? I frequently try to get stakeholders to simplify and really identify the core problem / proposed solution, but I run into a lot of "all or nothing" or "design for every possible use case" folks in startups.
- Call attention to the timeline and frame things in terms of specific tradeoffs: "Yes we can do A, but that means we won't have the time/resources to do B"
- Propose an incremental approach. I.e. "There are some technical challenges with achieving A+B+C, so what if we start with A, and then asses the best way to reach B and C."
With the incremental approach, I think this can help avoid the stakeholder feeling like they lost something, and 9 times out of 10 once you give them A they will find out that's all they needed in the first place, and they don't end up asking about B+C again.
Sometimes you need to spend time upfront and do it properly from the beginning, otehrwise the software quickly can become unmaintainable