<> I felt so strongly about the poor communication coming out of the WorkFront Product Management team in 2013/2014, I somehow managed to get a personal audience with the then CEO and with CTO Steve Zobell during the first LEAP conference. In that discussion (I can be candid, I’m afraid) I expressed the importance of open communication about the product direction, the theme of the releases, and honesty about what makes it to the release and had to be dropped from the release. Not that I think one meeting was that influential, but I gather they were hearing the same time from a lot of people. I have to say, the Product Management team has done much better over the last year in communicating what they are releasing. I started with AtTask in early 2013 and I have to say they are a light year now from where they were then, regarding release communication. They need to feel the love for making all the improvements they’ve made in the last year. I think the next increment of improvement will relate to visibility into the far-term release schedule, the theme of those releases, and what specific user-requested changes are sequenced into those releases. Currently, we have a visibility horizon of near-future releases. It would be nice to know what they are sequencing into releases six months, nine months, next year - the far-term releases. Okay, I used to be a product manager for a software company so I kind of understand the challenges they are likely facing opening the kimono, as it were. It makes software companies nervous because, among other reasons, those future release schedules go through a high degree of change. They generally start locking in releases when the go-live is four or five months out. WorkFront is really good (now) about communicating their near-term releases, because they’re rather well locked. Far-term releases are really fluid. People might see a critical bug-fix or feature in a nine-month-out release and pin their hopes on it being delivered. Something happens and that critical feature is dropped from the release. Now you’ve just ticked off a bunch of customers by getting their hopes up and dashing their hopes to the rocks. No one wants to tick off customers and boy that will do it. So, I get why they might be hesitant to give visibility into far-term releases. Been there, I’ve seen it, it ain’t pretty. Now, having said that, let me propose something they could do that would be beneficial (and fun, too!). Work with me on this… 1) Let’s say WorkFront says the Fall Release (end of September) is the “Users Choice Release”; 2) The theme of that release would be the bug fixes and features (let’s call them changes hereafter) the end user community voted as the most important to their business; 3) How does that work? WorkFront shows users a list of say, the top 50 changes - they’d know what they are by virtue of how many times that change has been duplicated in their request system; 4) End Users go to a website and pick the top ten (force-rank ten) of those 50 changes; 5) After doing some cyphering, WorkFront product management would produce a forced-rank list of changes based on user input and voting; 6) WorkFront forecasts each of those changes by throwing cards (Agile reference there…WorkFront gave out some really nice forecast cards in the first LEAP Conference); 7) WorkFront determines the available capacity of the September Release; 8) WorkFront adds the force-ranked features to the September release until the capacity of that release is consumed; 9) WorkFront does that voodoo they do and implements the changes; 10) As happens, some changes drop from the release because problems arise and stuff just happens. We’ve all been there. My level of disappointment when that happens is only exceeded by my sympathy with the Product Management and Development team. They want to deliver value and are in the uncomfortable position of having to say, gee, um, no we didn’t get it done; 11) WorkFront launches the September release to the applause and adoration of thousands of smiling users. Rose petals fall on the WorkFront doorstep and champagne (okay, sparkling grape juice) flows freely at the post-implementation celebration. End users send gifts and flowers to the WorkFront product management team in Utah out of appreciation. The Product Management team gets a standing ovation at the opening ceremonies of LEAP 3 and never has to pay for their own drinks. A good time is had by all. What could possibly be bad about that scenario? Thanks for indulging me… Eric
