ESCAPE VELOCITY

1 - I like this post very much, and the one that came before as well. I heartily agree. I have a lot of thoughts about this topic, too many for a comment. But I want to say here in this thread, you are right on. There just isn't any real *will* from what I can tell at IBM to take Notes seriously. Somehow they still see it in some really strange skewed way. They don't see it for what it is. That is my perception. I also think that if they did see it for what it is, and what its possibilities are, some very interesting things could be done with it. Things that would revolutionize this market segment, and possibly the computing world at large.

2 - I was just having a similar discussion with a fellow Notes enthusiast yesterday. We were half laughing/half crying over how terrible the default templates still are. He summed it up this way; "inside IBM they just don't get it. To them a terrible UI isn't a problem, it's normal". As long as the code works they think the job is done. I think that things are improving since R8, but you have to wonder why they can't finish the last 5% of the job by letting a graphics/UI person review the product before release.

3 - My comment was meant to clarify that you can't blame developers for the direction and functionality in the product. You can blame them for bugs; along with QA but not the chasm you spoke of.

You can't let, how many; 1000+ plus developers code with free rain any features they want. How would you manage that? So say they did have in-depth, killer knowledge of how the product was used in the real world. How would you manage their implementation of the task they were handed? Developers don't decide on functionality they want to build on a team of that size. This is where the product developers and Notes developers working for a business veer off. They are, most of the time, the developer, product manager, business analyst, everything.

The product management team is tasked with culling through all the things that you spoke of, the little annoying things and all the new shiny things to determine how to best utilize the limited number of developers they have and the time they have before code freeze. They have the enormous job of string that perfect balance, satisfying the existing and those on their way to be; customers.

The concept of a Notes product developer walking in the shoes of a Notes developer is great but in not sure it’s all that practical. Many of the developers have areas of expertise that they know like the back of their hand. Sitting in on changes in the real world to a notes database, talking with HR about adding new views, columns, fields, etc won't help those tasked with updating the ODS, improving Single Sign On or other bucketed areas.

So back to the chasm, it’s all in the culling and deciding on what to put in the product. The developers have proven they can make it a reality. The Herculean task is having all the key information from those out in the field, information on what competitors have and where they are going and sprucing it up with new functionality. All of this has to be decided on, scheduled and over seen, while supporting the last few builds… on a huge, very complex product. My head hurts just thinking about it.

4 - This is a great post and to add to it I would confirm that growing a product organically can be very good - meaning people working out ideas, prototypes, use cases, etc is where it needs to be. Unfortunately, I think product management should be driving these interactions. Every time I meet with a large customer (their engineers and users) and hear their real problems we end up creating great solutions. This only happens when you start and the bottom and push it up. When the engineers at company A tell their management IBM can do X and the engineers at IBM tell their product managers we can do X for company A then it ends up being a done deal - most of the time. The exceptions are when company A is 20 people and don't really bring a lot of revenue to the table. There are exceptions however, if the idea is brilliant and can be used in many companies it also has help.

The bottom line, both sides need to fully understand the requirements and check-points need to happen in order insure things are on the right track. Sound familiar to any agile people?

Outside of that, Yancy is correct. You are not going to convince a low level replication engineer in Lotus to start using complicated Mail and calendaring function or even understand how to. In most cases the PM's are the starting point.

5 - I'm worried....I respect myself as a Notes developer and I use Input Validation formulas.

6 - Yancy I don't BLAME the developers for anything -- except maybe bugs. My point is that the culling process is broken.

I know for a fact that heads-down engineers make a LOT of decisions about stuff that has material impact on the use of the software, whether we like it or not. Personally, I don't see how specs are ever going to get detailed enough to fix that in an Agile process.

Don, admitting it is the first step in getting treatment. Don't inflict IVFs on your poor users. Use a form event to identify ALL the validation issues with a form and offer a single message that tells the user.

7 - Great post, Nathan. Very insightful and right on target, IMHO.

That said, it does seem to me that IdeaJam is an attempt to bridge this chasm by bringing together desperate voices to give weight and merit to enhancements that IBM may never have thought of or may never have thought of as important. AFAIK IBM has been looking at IJ and that is a first step in crossing that chasm, is it not? We're talking about a massive shift in thought patterns for both the individual developer/engineer/product manager and for the organization as a whole. This will be a long process, likely fraught with missteps but well intentioned missteps. Simply by acknowledging IJ's existence I think that this is acknowledgment of an issue by IBM as well as an attempt to make a shift.

I am hopeful.

8 - Great post full of truths...spilled coffee down my chin on this line; "When customers ask for an Inbox that can show the subject on a separate row from the sender, product managers give us a Java runtime environment that requires a GB of RAM".

I too use IVFs and like the idea of a single popup telling the user whats wrong...thanks for that, will have a play on the next big app.

9 - An excellent post!
It is nice to get shiny new toys to play with, but when the notes client is still is not on parity with basic browsers you have to wonder who is doing the follow through on product development.
Input validation is *broken* plain and simple. You should be able to control input at the character level, accept, reject and/ transform at will. Type ahead should be able to work for any text field - have these guys seen quickbooks or consumer tools like it?
Where is the SVG renderer? Here is the easiest way to get graphs/plots and images into an application and we have to launch an external java window to get it working!
How about having more then one column in the list box field? These are the things *end users* notice and it's just lame to have to explain to them that *Notes* can't do it.
One theme that is coming through is that Notes isn't about RAD anymore, it's going to *systems* level application development.
I hope they get back to the RAD at sometime in the future.

10 - I understand that there are 850 developers (out of a total of 3-4 thousand at Lotus) working on the core Lotus Notes/Domino technologies within IBM. Obviously it's not practical for users and external developers to talk directly to each individual Lotus developer, so there needs to be someone between the users and external developers and the internal developers.

A balance also needs to be made between strategic, tactical and operational issues, and this is where Product Management has a role to play.

I agree with Nathan's perception that Product Management have not always been on the same page as users or external developers. Perhaps it's because Product Management generally come from a sales or marketing background rather than a technical background, so see the world differently.

Product Management is also measured differently than development, so for them investing huge amounts in user interfaces and what they consider are minor enhancements is a difficult cause to push, particularly when their VP is primarily focussed on maximizing profit and meeting corporate revenue and profit targets.

However, part of the problem also lies with us developers and users, because we don't clearly articulate to Product Management what the impact that certain enhancements are going to make on their sales and revenue targets. If we did, they could much more easily justify each change, because it could be readily translated into outcomes that they are actually measured on.

Finally, like other parts of life, organizations respond to the squeaky wheel, so little enhancements get pushed aside by bigger and more exciting projects, and particularly in large organizations there are often factions and internal politics to consider.

Perhaps the only way to overcome these issues is to pressure IBM to measure VP's by how they meet developers and users expectations. If they measured these executives at least partially in that way, then things might slowly begin to change.

But to give IBM/Lotus some credit, they seem to be listening and at least trying to strike a balance. Compare that to some other vendors.

11 - Great post.

"Somehow, we have to build a base of shared experience."

IBM has two immediate opportunities to address this strategic problem:

1. IdeaJam, IdeaJam, IdeaJam.

2. The "Developer's Advocate" role. Now that Bob Balaban is gone, who is his replacement?

A related idea crossed my mind earlier today, Nathan. I'm curious to know what you think:

Lotus Support tracks enhancement requests and bug fixes as SPRs. What if there was functionality within IdeaJam to where we could post SPRs related to an idea? E.g. This HORRIBLE bug:

{ Link }

If IdeaJam had that sort of functionality it might lend those of us that feel strongly about an Idea to make formal requests through PMRs. How many of the 140+ people that have voted for full GZIP support have actually opened PMRs requesting that functionality be added? Where would that support be now if the Idea had been listed a year ago WITH an SPR # listed that people could request to be added to?

At the very least even if IBM doesn't read IdeaJam they'd see requests through official channels, with real dollars behind them, that would end up at least going through their normal triage process.

The only potential downside I see would be if (a) IBM thought it was *too* successful and somehow diluted the value of PMRs, or (b) IBM was upset about having a large list of "bugs" and other gripes in one place, causing them to take action to shut down IdeaJam.

I'm leaning towards them being OK with it, but what do you think?

12 - Thanks again for all the positive responses. One thing...

"Obviously it's not practical for users and external developers to talk directly to each individual Lotus developer"

I'm not so sure of that. Stephan suggested yesterday, tongue firmly in cheek, the idea of an "adopt a partner" program. Personally, I think that's a fantastic idea. I have no idea how it could be managed, but if there were some way for a product developer to get some sort of positive feedback if they "adopted" a customer/partner and acted as their internal advocate, I think that would dramatically advance the closeness of the relationship between IBM and the Yellowverse.

There's an aspect of open source that I think is often lost by analyst. "Involvement" has an inherent social value that plays into decision making. If you feel your voice is heard, you are going to have greater faith in the institution that listened. That's gospel in politics, and I believe it's largely true for software as well. (Which speaks volumes about the similarities between the two, doesn't it?) Putting a stake in the ground that recognizes the concept of a constituency is vital to long-term success.

Let me offer another way of thinking about it... One IBMer recently said to me "enterprise customers are our bread and butter." Well, yeah, that's true. But an enterprise like Colgate-Palmolive is not going to double their licensing base next year. An enterprise like Autotrader.com just might. So if you can find a way to address the needs of thirty or forty Autotraders, you get the equivalent of a Colgate. Or if you wait 6 years, it turns out the customers are the same size!

It's generally a much smaller engineering task to address the needs of a smaller customer. So while you may not make as many SEATS happy by addressing an SMB need, you can make far more SHOPS happy.

And here's a little secret: when you hear "everybody uses Outlook," they're not talking about seats. They're talking about shops. GREAT BIG HUGE DIFFERENCE.

13 - @11 - Erik, anything you ever post or comment on is still too laden with emotional baggage for me to ever provide an objective view. Sorry -- that's just how it is. Actions have long-term consequences. You're right that from an engineering standpoint, that's a nasty bug. I'm simply not going to care, though.

As far as IBM's use of IdeaJam, there's two basic issues...

1) IdeaJam is defined as a Bruce Elgort project. I love Bruce. Clearly, he and I have a long-standing relationship, and while it's had its ups and downs, I treasure him as much as almost anyone on earth.

That being said, he has a long history of burning bridges with IBM. I think he has a history of being at least 90% right in his stance of independence from them. But now that he's an ISV, that rebellious streak has long-term consequences.

Then again, part of it is also the NIH syndrome on the part of IBM.

Both of them need to get over the past and figure out how to best envision the future, IMO. I have done everything I can think of to push both sides past that -- but ultimately my position is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. And where it really counts, those two parties are definitely talking to each other. We can all hope they come to an agreement, because that would benefit us all!

2) IdeaJam is splendid, but it's also a coarse-grained measurement. It will need to evolve before it can be an instrument of strategic decision-making for the likes of IBM. Elguji is smart enough to understand this, and they're by no means sitting still. But at the moment, IBM has to decide whether they're going to accept something less-than-ideal but way more than they have now, or try to "stay the course" with current approaches.

Personally, I hope they embrace IdeaJam wholeheartedly. And I hope Elguji makes a point of encouraging them to do so.

IBM does NOT have an internal culture that empowers them to embrace outside technology. It is my most earnest hope that this will someday change. The elephant learned to two-step, but it hasn't really mastered hip-hop.

14 - @13 / "still too laden with emotional baggage" -

I do understand, and I am truly sorry to hear that. I'd be lying if I said I was unemotional about it as well.

About IdeaJam: I think that SPR-tracking might help to smooth the "roughness" of IdeaJam as it exists today. At the very least it should provide a filter of sorts -- 100+ "promotes" might generate fifty PMRs. Or it might generate ten, two, or none at all. That information has to be valuable to IBM, and they would have an additional piece of key information on their end: the financial weight of each customer.

That might just give a large number of SMBs enough of a unified voice to be heard. I'll pass the idea on to Bruce.

I am a bit shocked, however, that you wouldn't care at all about the specific bug I posted. It affects every NAB on every ND 6.0/6.5/7/8/8.5 server in existence. Who knows how many man-hours are wasted on the admin side (and the IBM support side) chasing red herrings that are really just being caused by this rare, intermittent, and nasty bug.

15 - @14 - Erik, if you cared to address it, it's been in your power for years to get rid of that baggage. The ball has always been in your court.

As far as the IdeaJam stuff goes -- reach out to Bruce. He's very responsive. I'm sure he'd be interested in working with IBM support on tracking their bugs.

16 - This may knock me out of running for a PM job, but here it goes anyway.
You are of course correct, many Lotii have been on the inside for years at this point, many others not so long or moved over from an IBM position.
Either way they do miss the outside world knowledge.
When I was hired to Lotus it was because I had the background and strong experience in the banking, government and other sectors of managing lotus infrastructures.
However it was a long hard battle to get input into Iris back then for many reasons. Some of which, hopefully have gone away over time.
When I would try to press some issues it would get bounced by the senior PM's as whining but some of the sanme issues still exist today, 8 years later, as some of you have pointed out already and many times in your blogs.
There is a balance that gets met, but in my case, it's a consistency which is frustrating. Why is there policies that are unenforceable for instance? how does this help anyone if the user can change them, if they know how?
Why does Traveler break your web settings in R8, but R8 doesn't advise you to change them when you upgrade? Sure I could read a manual, but don't you think they could build it so it didn't break your network?

No, the problem partially lies in the fact that PM is broken down into some very small pieces in some cases so much so that putting it all together can be very difficult naturally.

There used to be, and probably still is, a dedicated PM for Calendar/Schedule.
Personally I think this is the hardest job to have because you never, ever get it right or complete. Kudos to Heidi Votaw and I think Dwight Morse and others over the years that got that project.

In the end I think a more fluid path of upgrading is coming with partial updates being moe common almost like Linux patches. Sure it may mean more work for admins but perhaps it will lead to a more efficient and productive piece of software. Hopefully my thought is inline with Cambridge but who knows.