How do you please all software users all of the time?

Today, EnvisionConnect has no known defect for more than 30 business days.

This is a rule, and it supersedes all other rules.

Why?

Back when we had defects that lived beyond 30 business days, customers would beat us up over it. We'd address the most critical issues, but the rest would hang out in our tracking systems for years.

And we didn't know what to do about them.

Each customer had their own little pet bug that drove them crazy. This prompted them to drive the folks in support crazy. And that prompted the folks in support to drive Development crazy.

But there was little Development could do.

Since each individual customer had their own pet defect, there was no reasonable way to prioritize the list and make everyone happy.

This, however, was only the tip of the ice-berg.

Anytime we added new features or tried to modernize the look and feel of the application, customers would ask: Why is that more important than my pet defect?

Eventually, our very livelihood was effected by this.

We were afraid to modernize the look and feel of our application, because our customers would complain, but when competition came on the scene with spiffy, cutting-edge looking applications, our customers complained that our application wasn't as cute as the competition.

We were in a no win situation.

We had to revamp the way we do business. We had to find a means to deliver cutting-edge applications with a modern, spiffy look and feel—and still deliver a bug-free application.

It wasn't easy finding that happy medium, but we did it.

And now no one drives anyone crazy any longer.

Well, almost no one.