Have you ever gotten the scheduling runaround?
This can feel really off-putting to a brokerage, because in real estate sales, dates matter! You could never build a successful business if closings were “scheduled to occur sometime this quarter” or simply “added to the roadmap.” That would be crazy.
In software development, a lack of date commitments are actually commonplace. Without the ability to count on exact dates, which you’re so reliant on in other areas of your business, it may seem like development cycles occur rather haphazardly.
I promise that, at least for reputable development shops, we do have a method to the scheduling madness.
Let me explain how it all works behind the scenes
By having good communication between you and your website development team (ideally by way of a great project manager), you shouldn’t feel left in the dark about what’s being worked on and what you’ll actually get next.
Change = good.
As TRIBUS’ VP of Product, I get to be involved first-hand in planning our development cycles. Being open to change has proven to benefit TRIBUS and our customers time and time again because it allows us to remain focused most on the long-term health of our products and services rather than on short-term gains.
If we promise you a feature by a set date, then we may end up having to forgo something that came up later than your request but could be more urgent. Once we find a bug, we evaluate the importance and impact of that bug so that we can allocate time right away if needed. This allows us to prevent something that, if left unattended, would have caused frustration for all of your users. All by just making a few quick adjustments in our queue. Most clients agree that it’s in everyone’s best interests if their feature takes the backseat while an urgent issue is resolved.
Margin is good, and so we work in batches. Even without a date, we can always tell you where your feature stands within the rest of the list and when we plan to begin working on it. Not only that, but we’re happy to keep you in the loop as things change and as we make progress. There have been many times where we’ve even completed client requests ahead of the schedule that we originally estimated.
It may take months of getting to know (and trust) your development team in order to accept that change is actually good, but that’s okay. If you work with a great team for a long enough time, I’m confident you’ll accept that change plays a very necessary part of software development.
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Knowing that change is inevitable, I keep my team realistic and only fully scope and design things that will get done in the near future. Further than a month out, the feature landscape may look completely different and we don’t want to waste anyone’s time… which brings us to priorities.
Priorities are paramount
Instead of locking in hard dates, we embrace a cyclical development approach.
This is important because it allows us to staff an in-house development team (no, we don’t outsource our projects), and keep that team busy throughout the heavy client seasons (i.e., slower on product releases), as well as the heavy product seasons (i.e., slow on client themes).
Throughout the course of each day, I take a look at the changing workload and adjust priorities. Every. Single. Day.
- Bugs get attention first
It’s not fun to admit, but bugs will always exist in software. We hate seeing bugs and so we will always squash them as fast as possible. - Client priorities next
The great part about TRIBUS clients is that they’re extremely innovative and love to see their websites and systems evolve. Once we build and launch a client project, it’s highly likely that they will continue to pick our brains about ongoing change orders. I can’t say it enough — change can be a good thing! - Maintenance will follow
As we add features to the system, maintenance becomes required. We make sure to dedicate time to things like code organization, refactors, language/framework updates, performance, and other miscellaneous improvements that come with evolving software and tools. These aren’t always things that get sales teams excited, but it’s absolutely crucial to having a stable system that you can rely on. - Internal wishlist items and product development last
We have hundreds of ideas for product enhancements and improvements at any given time, so we always keep a healthy backlog of work for our team. That being said, we do have seasons each year that have fewer client requests, so product work gets to jump ahead to second on the list during those times.
This cycle will continue to repeat itself over and over again, because as Jason mentions in his posts, our work will never be finished.
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Some tools we use for planning
The TRIBUS development team works with an ever-evolving, priority-based schedule, so excellent project management tools are a necessity. Otherwise, things would get lost and commitments would get missed — no doubt about it. Unfortunately, no one has a perfect memory.
An online project management tool makes the work visual for the entire team, and it avoids forcing people to duplicate information over and over again. It also keeps us honest with ourselves since many tools will track your historical data and plot the estimated schedule for you.
Here are a couple tools that we really like:
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Pivotal Tracker lets us quickly change out priorities through a drag-and-drop interface, and it also makes estimations mandatory. That’s important when we review past releases (estimates versus reality) and plan for the next.
It also offers a very visual activity board so that we can see what’s been done, what’s in progress and what’s next; all while grouping all the little details that make up a single release (bugs, features and maintenance) together.
Learn more about this tool here.
While Pivotal Tracker houses our product development, we really love Teamwork Projects for our big client projects. Not only is its interface inviting for clients, it also offers many core features that those projects require: task lists, message boards, time tracking and reporting. It’s solid base, and its customization options make it a no-brainer for our team.
One of the features our project managers especially like is the Gantt Charts. These will plot various projects that we have going on simultaneously onto one company-wide calendar. It will also highlight any important milestones and allow us to shift a group of tasks or phase in a project with just one click.
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Learn more about this project management software here.
How can brokerage staff best keep their team in the scheduling loop?
Just because we embrace flexible schedules doesn’t mean that we’re not empathetic to the position you’re personally in — a position where you’re still required to update your team about our schedule.
Instead of feeling like the burden is completely on your shoulders to provide info, loop us in! Here are a few tips to plan development cycles successfully.
- Be open about your real goals
Try your best not to hold back any information. Many times key information could get left out at the beginning of a project because it seems irrelevant to you or your team. Each of your goals will impact the overall scope of the project, and a detail that may seem small to you could actually increase or change the plan quite a bit — in a good way. - Batch work together whenever possible
If you’ve got a handful of ideas or requests, we recommend that you go ahead and share them with your project manager right away. Even if you decide not to move forward with everything all at once, your project manager is there to help guide you toward the most efficient method to reach your goals. Not to mention, maybe one of the items on your wishlist is already in the works! You may be missing crucial information if you didn’t ask. - Share your priorities
If you think one feature should be delivered before another, or if a feature would make your team really happy to get first — tell your project manager! We rely on that insight when we’re planning more than most people think. Since we don’t get to be physically present inside your offices and experience a day in your life, don’t assume that we inherently understand what’s most important to you. - Check in frequently
Again, things may need to shift and that’s okay. Frequent check-ins with your project manager allow you to feel like you’re part of a unified team. If your priorities change, just tell your project manager and they should be able to adjust the plan right away. It’s especially important to check in before you have an important meeting or message planned where you’re responsible for updating your own brokerage team. This will allow all of us to stay completely in sync and never accidentally send out unrealistic timelines.
Ultimately, dates matter to you and priorities matter to us, so let’s work together to find a balance and schedule that actually works.
