need more time in the oven

English

Verb

need more time in the oven (third-person singular simple present needs more time in the oven, present participle needing more time in the oven, simple past and past participle needed more time in the oven)

1. (figurative) Of a project or an idea, to be insufficiently polished or thought out; requiring more time to attain acceptable quality.

   Their draft of the new business case doesn't yet say enough about the market research they've done — it clearly needs more time in the oven.

   • 1996, Todd G. Buchholz, From Here to Economy‎, Penguin Publishing Group, →ISBN:

     Though Jevons's theory was more than half-baked, it needed more time in the oven, since he forgot to calculate that poor harvests in Asia would hit England only after a time lag.

See also

• half-baked
• underbaked
• underdeveloped