Everyone’s unhappy

Simon Hook
Aug 31, 2018 · 5 min read
Photo by Greg Raines on Unsplash

We thought we’d done everything in our power to keep everyone happy. Keep everyone pleased with the new work taking place and that which is being delivered. Well, Apparently that’s not the case!

My focus was always on the senior management. Those are the guys funding the project after all. If they’re not on-board then it’s a complete no show, end of story. Project over.

So, I spent a long time pulling together slides to share with the senior management team. Usually on a weekly basis. For a meeting labelled our UX steering committee.

They were happy. Comfortable and I felt confident. They were even beginning to get sight of the lengths of work required for the considerable improvements necessary to improve the user experience design.

They, I felt, were slowly beginning to get an understanding of the work involved for user experience. We were sharing on a micro level that which was happening within the product team.

They were seeing first hand the intricate work required to make stuff happen. They were witness to the long conversations happening, and even beginning to take part in those discussions over important things like the products information architecture. We thought everything was in order, so we thought it was going to be great when release time comes around.

Think again. It’s in fact the complete opposite of that. Things genuinely couldn’t be worse right now. Even though the product remains massively profitable. Even though the product has a 98% renewal rate. Still. Our entire, well for the most part, our account team. Unfortunately, found the time to complain quite considerably about the changes that were being introduced. Clearly some members of the organisation have an interesting allocation of time required for their roles. Lucky them.

Those that didn’t complain and were far more understanding of the situation. Where the team members close to us. Those same individuals willing to share ideas, to come over and speak with us. And to try and understand the work going into the journey which we find ourselves embarked upon. Those guys are happy. Well happier, at least!

But the team which is remote. They couldn’t be any more unhappy with the progress. We’ve even experienced laughter at some of the changes. Wow, now there’s team work for you.

The product that without my help is seeing renewal rates of 98% and those making profit and getting bonuses on that are laughing.

Remind me never to be such a cu*t when it comes back to feeding back into a product again. Can you imagine that. Months of hard work and half the team are remotely laughing during meetings which we’ve also taken time to prep for. It’s all a process of learning though, that’s my thoughts on that one.

I even heard that this same remote team have enough hours on their hands to spend the next 4 hours in the office bitching and complaining. How constructive. Lucky for them they have that extra time on their hands to sit around chin wagging about how things can be better. Perhaps using that time to read the release notes another member of our team is preparing for them would make for a more valuable use of time. What do I know though.

It’s so easy though. It’s the easiest thing in the world. To complain. To criticise. To moan. Any moron in the world can complain, bitch and share they’re uneducated opinions. But where does that get us… Or anyone for that matter?

Currently it’s put us into a position where the product team is thinking. Srew you. You’ll get what you’re given and you can deal with it. Which I’m sure is the complete opposite effect from what that team is trying to achieve. But this is their attitude towards progress.

You will never make everyone happy. That’s a simple fact. That’ll never change and the sooner you come to terms with that, the sooner your life with be a little less stressful.

So. What’s missing? I’ve been told by our new sales director, who’s obviously done product design before, marketing and sales. All before of course. He’s clearly a very experienced senior individual. And a skilled one to boot too.

Well, yesterday I had the pleasure of listening to all the fantastic ideas he has. Many of which have already been considered. Designed and then pulled from the sprint. As we simply don’t have the development capacity to deliver on them. They’re in the ever growing, never ending back log. But it’s good to know that our new super talented sales guy is equally onboard with those concepts.

I’m being really unfair here. He’s actually a nice guy and I just take it to heart, as I’m more frustrated with myself than anyone else’s point of view. I could have done better. Should have done better.

He in fact made a couple of very valuable points. One being that if we shared a plan. If we had a clear road map. Then everyone could see where we’re heading. Including him I guess. The entire team could see what’s planned. For when. And this might mean we’re able to maintain focus. Squeeze out the bitching and moaning from our meetings. To something far more constructive, like focusing on the future improvements.

This makes complete sense to me. I could do more with sharing where we see the product heading. Somewhere completely different from what’s actually made it’s way through into our development cycle.

But, I’m not the product owner. I don’t have the luxury of making the final call. I’m not managing the budgets or deciding what the strategic focus is. I’m doing what I can of course to feed into all of that, but I not the one who makes the final decisions.

To be honest, I don’t even know if I’ll be there past November. For me it’s head to the ground, pedal on the metal. Full steam ahead kinda thing. Just doing whatever I can do to improve the user experience for the products users worldwide.

Primarily my goal was to demonstrate how important and valuable user experience could be to the business. I think I’ve done a fairly good job of working towards that. The two confirmed extensions. With a total of an extra 9 months on the project you would have thought was some clear demonstration of that.

But there are bigger challenges. Like business strategy. I can only provide a friendly nudge in the right direction. Be a consistent voice of the user. Back up the second hand voice from the CRM team and try to keep user experience as a priority.

The trouble is. User experience isn’t really even a topic on the boards agenda. (Well, that’s not strictly true, of course it is, they are funding me. But, for how long, that’s the question?)

When the business is strategically directed by a board with little understanding of digital product design. The product is always going to remain under resourced. The team is always going to be small. There will always be unrealistic conversations about what’s achievable. Matched with ridiculous timeframes.

Which will always make it challenging on the ground when you’re running from one sprint to the next. But, perhaps, at the same time, these are all some of the reasons, that this project and this place make for such an exciting environment to be working within.

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