Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Product Blue Skies
So while doing the vacuuming tonight, I came up with an idea based on some of the random conversations that were polluting Ian's airspace today.
Basically, we take R&D and split it into three (or four) sections. The first area would be called something like "Product Maintenance". Their sole job would be to work on the bug fixes for each of the three service packs issued each year.
The second group would be called something equally boring like "Product Development". They would be responsible for developing the enhancements and new features the board etc, thought should go into the yearly version release of TRIM.
The third group would the "Product Blue Skies" team. Their job would be to come up with whatever they thought TRIM was going to need in the next 3 to 5 years, and implement it now. If, once finished (or at least partly done) the board/important people felt it was a good idea, it could be integrated into the next version release of TRIM. Otherwise, the idea would be shelved (ready to pull out again if it actually turns out to be useful).
(The fourth group would be API Support)
R&D staff would be rotated through the sections, probably with every service pack release, so everyone had a chance to do each job. This would address a couple of issues I talked about today. For the past six months, Stilly has been complaining that the company isn't thinking ahead enough. So it would give him (and those like him) a chance to show everyone they were right. It would also give the helpdesk people a chance to blame someone specific when we (R&D) released a bug that causes them pain. Marc Post spent a while telling me about how he doesn't care about new features, he just wants a stable release of TRIM.
Anyway. This is all a bit rambly and is pretty much a direct brain dump. That's what you get for reading a post from someone who's just been vacuuming for half an hour...
And I'll actually post this now, instead of just saving it as a draft for me to look at...
Basically, we take R&D and split it into three (or four) sections. The first area would be called something like "Product Maintenance". Their sole job would be to work on the bug fixes for each of the three service packs issued each year.
The second group would be called something equally boring like "Product Development". They would be responsible for developing the enhancements and new features the board etc, thought should go into the yearly version release of TRIM.
The third group would the "Product Blue Skies" team. Their job would be to come up with whatever they thought TRIM was going to need in the next 3 to 5 years, and implement it now. If, once finished (or at least partly done) the board/important people felt it was a good idea, it could be integrated into the next version release of TRIM. Otherwise, the idea would be shelved (ready to pull out again if it actually turns out to be useful).
(The fourth group would be API Support)
R&D staff would be rotated through the sections, probably with every service pack release, so everyone had a chance to do each job. This would address a couple of issues I talked about today. For the past six months, Stilly has been complaining that the company isn't thinking ahead enough. So it would give him (and those like him) a chance to show everyone they were right. It would also give the helpdesk people a chance to blame someone specific when we (R&D) released a bug that causes them pain. Marc Post spent a while telling me about how he doesn't care about new features, he just wants a stable release of TRIM.
Anyway. This is all a bit rambly and is pretty much a direct brain dump. That's what you get for reading a post from someone who's just been vacuuming for half an hour...
And I'll actually post this now, instead of just saving it as a draft for me to look at...
# posted by Simon Dugard @ 9:25 pm 
