Every year starts the same. We take a hard look at the previous year’s numbers and which processes could use improvement. It’s in this last year though that we’ve started to do something different.
While what we build continues to be at the top of our list, how we build software has changed.
We’ve taken the approach of breaking tasks up even more to improve the way we work together. As a result, our development process has sped up a bit too. With a 13-person product team, we’re close to finding that sweet spot of setting development end goal dates, and actually sticking to them.
Here’s what we’re doing different:
No Formal Roadmap
We continue with no formal roadmaps (same as 2017). Every time I attach a date to a feature, it ends up biting me in the butt later on. The reality is, there's so much we want to do and not enough time to make it all happen. Priorities shift. New information becomes available and other more pressing things often pop up in between. This isn’t just a small software company problem or BrightGauge problem either, this is across the board in building software.
Switching to 6 Week Cycles
As a software development team we have been working in an “agile” format since 2013. In 2018, we’re following a new format based on a software company we really admire, Basecamp. The gist of the 6 week cycle is that agile is too short of an iteration (2 weeks) to get meaningful work done and 12 week feature themes (that we used in 2017) are too long to get something focused and shipped as we expected from the start. 6 weeks is a good middle ground where we can focus on just a few items and get something sizeable out the door in that time frame. At the end of each cycle we meet to figure out what the next cycle will mostly cover. Until then, we’re all heads down working on the current cycle, not thinking too much about what comes next.
One Big Batch Project, Multiple Small Projects at same time
With the move to 6 week cycles, a group of 2-3 people will work on one large feature at a time, while another group of the same size will work on multiple small projects. This way we can keep going, gaining easy wins towards improving the app while covering ground, working on harder and larger problems to solve.
Splitting Out the Integration Team
Randall has been our lone wolf but now he will be in a wolf pack. We’ve hired more resources to focus just on integrations, carving out a full-time team to make this their sole responsibility. These resources are data centric. They know SQL, how to code against APIs, and are excited to further get to know you, our customers.
Dedicated SIPP Effort (Security, Infrastructure, Performance, Productivity)
Always something in our peripheral, SIPP will take more of a front seat this year. With a larger team to dedicate time and effort to the app’s infrastructure, you’ll notice some great performance improvements over the next year. Faster load times for the win!
All of these changes have us really pumped! Like anything else, it’s a work in progress. Our focus remains the same though, build the best service we can for our customers. From there, we hope that translates to helping you improve too.
We’d be happy to discuss these areas of focus more. For anyone who’d like to learn more, please feel free to reach out anytime!
Join us for our webinar on Thursday, February 8th to learn more about what we're cooking up for this year.
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