Over the last 6 years of leading the product development group of a successful software business, I’ve learned that every few years the group needs to take a look at their software factory and make some deep changes. At Passageways, we discovered several years ago that ago that our platform had much more potential than the add-on modules we were able to market. Many customers often requested add-on modules that we simply didn’t have time in our team schedule to do. While the platform does ship with a PDK, and many of our customers do use it, sometimes their developers simply don’t have the time or the organization itself just doesn’t have developers at all but are still willing to pay for the add-on module. So, Passageways introduced the idea of a consulting arm to help address these requests and it was immensely successful! Very quickly we learned though that building custom solutions for customers, sometimes very large solutions, and then selling multiple copies can confuse the market and our own staff as to what is a product and what is not.

At Passageways, we also began to reach a point where the number of enhancement requests and ideas was simply too much for the teams to handle in a reasonable period of time and we had to begin making tough choices and prioritize our work! For a small team of excited individuals, this can be more challenging than you might think! The realization that we simply can’t do it all and we may have to tell someone “no” is a very difficult thing for anyone running a business!

As you continue to grow, you also realize that your development teams have to keep up with the ever-changing technology marketplace and need to attend seminars and workshops so they are aware of what our industry is doing and can apply new technologies to the products they are creating.

So, there were a multitude of things happening all at once for us. So, I decided it was time to pump some energy-juice into our group and for the first time in our history, attempt to resolve every major problem area facing our development group today.

It’s important that developers feel like they are clear on what is expected of them, excited at trying new technologies, understand the focus of the business and its long-term strategy, and ultimately enjoy what they do day-to-day. It’s equally important that the rest of the company be clear on the progress development teams are making, what projects they are working on, and when to expect bugs and enhancements to be addressed, even if the answer is “we can’t get to that anytime soon”.

And so begins Project Rock and Roll….an attempt to make our software machine so focused on our business goals and really begin to once again knock the market out of the park! So far it’s been immensely successful and has not yet launched but stayed tuned as the launch approaches in the next few weeks!