Most software companies tend to “surprise” us with their new release. Feels like a surprise, to us the user. In fact, I suspect its just as much a surprise to the development/release team as well. Up until about two years ago, we followed this same paradigm. We developed and released roughly annually and came out with just about 3-4, maybe 5 updates along the way. At the time, it seemed like it was working really well. We then took a step back and thought, what if we actually committed to a schedule?
The plan was an annual releases with quarterly updates. And get this, we planned to post the release dates to our user community. Seemed totally logical to me, the product manager. But, needless to say, there was quite an uncomfortable vibe in development and QA. Rightfully so, our product is immensely complex and we are tweaking and adding buckets of new functionality all the time. The pace takes a bit of getting used to. At the same time, we adopted a completely new development environment. Change is always good:)
Interestingly enough, the good people that develop ubuntu follow the same philosophy– they call it a “cadence”. Check out Mark Shuttleworth speaking about it below.
I am proud to announce that we are coming up on releasing our sixth release perfectly on time. The quality and predictability of our software has never been better. It allows us to respond to enhancement requests, fix bugs add new functionality and plan in a very efficient manner. The stress of delivering everyday is immense, but I feel that it’s what holds us all accountable. Not only accountable to the product, but accountable to the community.
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