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I cannot remember where I came accross the following concept, nor the name of that concept. Maybe you could help me.
The concept is about a trick of consciously adding a useless/bad feature to a design to make it what managers will remark on (and ask to remove) instead of other features the designer is more attached to.
Can anyone help me find the name of this concept again?
Adding a feature with the purpose of having it be removed/changed by the reviewer is a form of using a red herring. The most famous example of this in development that I know of is the queen's duck from Battle Chess, an example of the law of triviality. You could even call it adding "a duck".
Its called managing a thumbprint client. Idea is that you leave something for them to change so they feel they are doing their job. The trouble with this strategy is they can like the thumbrint you left.
Just wanted to share a few more options and close analogues, though only the first one is a direct answer to the question:
Nathan Barry uses the duck example from Battle Chess and calls them intentional flaws, which isn't super catchy but a useful term of art nevertheless
There is a myth that the Amish (or Muslim rugmakers, the Navajo, etc.) would deliberately make mistakes in their quilting because "only God is perfect." Whether it's true or not, many people now do deliberately insert humility blocks into their quilts as a kind of signature / statement
... a similar but not exact sentiment is the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, which is a representation of the deliberate acknowledgement (and beauty!) of imperfection, impermanence, fragility, wear, etc. in one's art.
The "trap street" in maps (also Argleton and Agloe, New York, which are "phantom settlements" that only exist to catch map plagiarizers) - this is a little different, in that you're not supposed to find these so you can get called out later, but it's in a similar vein - putting things in artificially for the purpose of later review
Similarly, the famous "brown M&Ms" of the Van Halen concert rider were about artificially injecting useless things that were deliberately meant to be noticed and attended to
Another possibility is to call them Waldos (or Wallies!), - again, hiding something on purpose in such a way that it's meant to be found
The fairy tale The Princess and the Pea embodies the conceit - the princess proves her worth by noticing a pea beneath 20 mattresses, so perhaps "hiding the pea" or something similar...
... and thinking of other idioms related to being distracted by unimportant details, we could potentially call them molehills (out of which one can make mountains), weeds (to get lost in), plastic trees (that they miss the forest for), or deck chairs (like the ones proverbially rearranged on the Titanic) ..
In the world of art and literature, these might be MacGuffins (again, something artificially inserted to be found by the hero), banana peels (whose only purpose is to be slipped on), gargoyles (ugly things deliberately placed on beautiful things to stand out), happy accidents (praise to Bob Ross), or white rabbits (distractions to be followed) ..
Since we're kind of pulling a con, taking words from that jargon gives us flashing - that is, deliberately "accidentally" showing your mark something you want them to see; or salting the mine, where you'd strategically place gold or jewels in an otherwise worthless mine to convince a prospector to buy it; there's also the monte or shell game.
In psychology, there is the pratfall effect (or blemishing effect) which is that "highly competent individuals tend to become more likable after committing mistakes"
The added features have been called "hairy arms", in the context of early Disney animators giving their management something to chew on -- arm hair on animated characters to be cheerfully discarded 1.
In Richard Buskirk's "Handbook of Managerial Tactics", this is referred to as the architect's window:
An architect who does not want her beautiful designs marred, may intentionally include an ugly feature (displaced window) so that clients will focus on its removal, which she will seemingly grudgingly accommodate. This tactic does carry with it a certain amount of risk. There are some clods in this world who will think the window is beautiful right where it is; you may get stuck with something you don't want.
You are "planting low-hanging fruit"
the obvious or easy things that can be most readily done or dealt with in achieving success or making progress toward an objective
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/low-hanging%20fruit
I know an electrician who told me that they "forget" the strike plates on studs so that the inspector only dings them for an easy fix.
You could also be "prepping cannon fodder"
soldiers regarded or treated as expendable in battle
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cannon%20fodder
In some sense you could be "constructing a Straw Man (or several)" since you're essentially creating a false target.
