At inSided, our aim is to maximize the value you get out of our product. We do that by constantly making improvements and delivering on your feedback. Recently however, we’ve had to invest a lot of time in stability and bug fixing. Unfortunately, as a consequence, we’ve spent less time on innovation.
In this update I’d like to share the challenges we’re facing and what we’re doing to get back to a healthy balance of innovation and maintenance.
Content types architecture
Our recent releases of Product Updates and Ideas have been built as separate system components. This makes them different from the existing content types you’re familiar with, such as Questions, Conversations, and Articles.
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We unfortunately found inconsistencies in how the data is handled between the newer and older content types. An example is when trashed Questions are filtered out from the overview in Control, but trashed Ideas are not. In retrospect this could have been prevented with clear technical agreements early on. We have since created these agreements (a.k.a. technical contracts) that help to avoid data inconsistencies and we're implementing them bit by bit while thoroughly testing.
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There is inconsistency in behavior from one content type to the next. An example being that Articles support scheduling and file attachments, however, Product Updates don't. We’re steadily working towards having these “missing” behaviors be available for all content types. This will also have a positive effect on the previous point about data consistency. You can soon expect to be able to edit some of the newer content types as well as highlight content.
We are actively working on the above problems and have already stabilized the platform to a large extent. We will continue to make further improvements in the coming months while we also work on some new features.
Federated search (integration)
We’ve had issues recently related to the Federated search integration. Because of this, we’ve made reloading the data more robust in the previous sprint. Additional improvements are planned in the upcoming sprints. Extra monitoring and logging have been added to continuously keep things in check and discover more ways to improve.
Quality-related practices
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Our test groups (beta-testers) for some new features were not large enough to effectively identify issues prior to full roll-out. Product Updates is an example of this. As we keep delivering features, we agreed internally to take more time to test what we build.
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Many gaps have been found in our automated test suite, especially in the newer features, and we are adding more automated tests.
We have upgraded our test suite and improved the continuous integration processes to always keep it up to date.
How we’re improving
The above problem areas along with their fixes are only one part. To make sure that we don’t end up in this situation again we have taken additional steps. These include:
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Refreshing the Engineering team’s vision and guiding principles to reflect the importance of keeping things simple, adhering to various standards as well as cultivating a healthy mindset around quality;
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Focusing on increasing skills/knowledge around sound software design, and finding a sustainable pace for innovation
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The inSided Product-Engineering team has undergone a recent reorganization. We formed new multi-disciplinary scrum teams with a greater focus on business outcomes. This process was wrapped up a couple of weeks ago and we’ll start to see the teams come into full stride in the upcoming weeks with more focus and accountability than before. Clear ownership boundaries will have a positive impact on both quality and the rate at which you can expect improvements and further innovation.
With the above, we will not only improve the current product but also get to a more stable situation where we can consistently innovate. The majority of effort for the remainder of this quarter will still be on improving the quality and finishing earlier releases.
We expect to go back to prioritizing ideas and feedback from our community at the beginning of Q3. As a community-led company that’s what we believe has the biggest impact and what we enjoy spending time on the most.
