On2Biz » Development Progress

Product Development and Teamwork

admin — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:17:44 +0000

Yesterday, Ashish – our usability expert, came up to me expressing his concern about whether his work is adding value, and does it make sense to continue working. I shared with him some lessons about working on a product as compared to working on projects, and about teamwork, which I think is relevant to all of us. So I thought I should share the same conversation with all of you.

Working on a product is different from working on a project. It is like the difference between running a marathon v/s running a short distance race. When you run a 100 mts race, you put all your energy into the race right from the beginning, and finish as fast as possible. In a marathon, you run as fast as you can without getting over-exerted. Your speed increases in stages, and as you come closer and closer to the finish, you run faster and faster. The problem is, in the product development marathon, you do not really know the terrain in advance – sometimes the road is a steep climb and sometimes it’s a nice downward run – sometimes the road is straightforward and you can see the way forward clearly, and sometimes its all curvy and every turn gives you a surprise. To win a marathon needs you to dynamically adjust your running style to the terrain, and most important, keep running come what may. So if you’re a short distance runner and are used to the short development cycles of projects, welcome to the world of marathons

Another important aspect in a long distance run is teamwork. You know how a flock of geese fly in a V formation? As each goose flaps its wings in its place in the formation, it creates uplift for the goose following it. By flying in a “V” formation, scientists have calculated that the whole flock adds up to 71 % more flying range than if the geese flew separately. Any goose that falls out of the formation quickly feels the drag and joins back. By working together in a team, we can fly much longer than if we were to do it alone.

But who leads the pack? When the goose in the lead gets tired, it rotates back into the group, and another goose takes it’s place in the lead. Now this is obvious – shared leadership ensures that no single person bears the brunt of leading from the front. But how do you think the geese decide who’s to lead at what time? The answer is that there is no “decision” – each goose flies thinking it is the leader. It’s speed is determined by the current energy levels. The goose with the most energy automatically flies a bit faster, and happens to become the leader. When it gets tired, it automatically falls back and another takes the leading position. If they had “decided” to follow the “mother” ( or father) goose at all times, they would not complete the journey!

When a goose gets sick or shot down, two geese will drop out of the formation and follow the wounded one down to help and protect it. They stay with it until it is either able to fly again, or dies. They then either catch up with their flock or find another formation to join. They never fly alone.

Welcome to the race!

On2Biz virtual development team, thanks to open source

How safe is your data in On2Biz?

admin — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 08:06:20 +0000

With the recent declaration by Google to offer a paid version of its web applications such as Gmail, calendar, and online document editors – collectively called Google Apps, the Software As A Service (SaaS) model has become mainstream. Now the discussion of the core issues relating to SaaS are being actively discussed, and hopefully will result in a widespread understanding of the benefits and compromises involved. As a case in point, Phil Wainewright, who maintains a well read blog aptly titled “Applications on demand” recently wrote – “Your data: safe in your hands?” that talks about one of the core issues – Data Security.

Unlike other attributes such as amount of space, bandwidth, or software features – which are easily measurable and therefore comparable, data security is psychological. Users have a false sense of security regarding data that is stored locally on their own computer or internal server as compared to data stored in a web server at a data center. Phil gives some examples to prove otherwise:

These stories show how easy it is to steal data from “well-resourced enterprises and government departments” when the data is stored in individual computers. Compared to that, data that is centrally stored in a professionally managed data center is far safer. The amount of investments that can be made at a data center towards securing data, and the risks involved for the service provider in the event of data loss are far too high. Ofcourse, trusting a big company like Google with your data is different from trusting an upstart like On2Biz. But then, with On2Biz, you have direct access to the people involved, rather than a call center handling customer calls. So you can hold us responsible – and we know it.

But as for outsourced storage, the story is going to get even more interesting. Google, and other big web companies like Amazon are working towards allowing web services companies like us to use their servers on a pay-per-use basis. We have already subscribed to Amazon’s S3 – which allows us to store data on servers managed by Amazon, and EC2 – which allows us to run our applications from their servers too! This will then give the double benefit of world-class security infrastructure combined with personal attention from the On2Biz team. But till then, our servers are still hosted in a world class professionally managed data center.

Looking forward to more action from the big guys…

On2Biz virtual development team, thanks to open source

Using the sales pipeline report for key performance indicators

admin — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 07:28:28 +0000

Conventionally, sales performance is measured by the value of orders closed. Sales persons are assigned targets, and their incentives are based on their ability to meet these targets. However, merely meeting targets does not ensure consistency of sales performance, effective utilization of sales resources, accurate target assignments, or effective sales conversions.

This article shows how the On2Biz pipeline report tracks various sales metrics that go far beyond the conventional target tracking to measure sales performance.

The pipeline report metrics

On2Biz automatically generates a sales pipeline report based on values entered in sales projects. Let us look at a sample pipeline report generated by On2Biz:

This is a pipeline for one month for a particular sales person. The metrics that are shown in the report above are:

1. Milestone – Milestones indicate the stage of sales in the sales process.

2. Pipeline – Pipeline indicates value and number of projects that are currently at various milestones.

The number of projects in the pipeline should be highest at the lead stage, and gradually reduce towards the bottom. In the example above, there are not enough projects at the beginning of the pipeline. This may hamper sales flow in the following period.

3. New – Indicates the number of new projects that have arrived at the corresponding milestone in the report period selected (1 month).

Each milestone should have some new projects each month. No new projects indicates that the sales process may be taking too long, or that there is not enough activity.

4. Inactive – Indicates the number of projects that are inactive for more than 1 week (or period specified in configuration) at the time the report is generated.

This column has two numbers shown as X / Y, where X are projects that are inactive due to lack of any sales activity, wyile Y are projects that may have activity, but have not shown any progress in milestones. Ideally, X should be low or zero, indicating enough sales activity is being carried out. Y indicates lack of progress.

5. Average Project Value – Indicates the average value of projects at the corresponding milestone.

The average value gives an indication of the size of orders that are being worked on. When comparing pipelines of sales persons, one can find out which sales persons are working on smaller value projects, but may have larger number of projects, and which sales persons are working on fewer, hopefully larger value projects.

6. Weighted Pipeline Value – Indicates the value of projects at the corresponding milestone, based on the probability of conversion.

The probability of conversion is automatically calculated by On2Biz, based on the history of conversion of the particular sales person, product category or sales team for which the pipeline report was generated. Ideally, the weighted value should be equally distributed in all the milestones, which ensures smooth sales flow. Lack of enough weighted value at any critical stage is an early warning for potential trouble to come.

7. Funnel – The funnel shows a cumulative performance of all projects in the selected category and period. It shows the total number of projects that have passed the corresponding milestone in the period for which the report was generated.

The shape of the funnel indicates the rate of conversion of projects along the different milestones. The funnel should be consistently tapering down, indicating healthy sales conversion.

8. Conversion Ratio – Indicates the rate at which projects are getting converted with respect to the total number of projects in the funnel.

The critical conversion ratios to watch are the top and bottom – conversion of leads to opportunities, and order conversion. If the conversion of leads to opportunities is not high enough, it indicates that the quality of leads being captured may not be good enough. Order conversion should be consistent, as per benchmarks of the particular industry or market. A low order conversion ratio indicates lack of sales effectiveness. However, if the order conversion ratio is too high, it may not necessarily be good. It may be a sign of under-utilization of sales resources – you may be playing too small a game.

Drilling down from the pipeline report

One can drill down from this report to the list of projects for the following metrics:
1. Click on the pipeline value to get a list of projects that are currently at that milestone
2. Click on the number of new projects to get details of the projects
3. Click on the Inactive projects X / Y to get the corresponding projects that are inactive. Both X and Y are separate links.

Key Performance Indicators

To understand how the above metrics can be used as key performance indicators, let us see another example of a pipeline report to compare with the previous one:

Let us compare the above pipeline with the one previously shown:
1. Shape of the funnel – Firstly, the shape of the funnel now looks warped. Compare this with the previous report, where the funnel was gradually tapering. The bulge in the middle indicates that this sales person has projects that have directly entered the quotation stage and not as converted leads. This is likely because these may be repeat orders by existing customers (one can see the details of the projects by clicking on the corresponding pipeline value). So the sales person may be overly dependent on repeat orders and not putting enough effort on new leads – or in this case, just sitting on the leads without working on them.

2. Distribution of Weighted Pipeline Value – Compared to the previous example, this report shows a different distribution of the weighted value. There is a larger weighed value of the top, and smaller weighted value at the bottom. However, if one looks at the new and inactive columns, it shows that these leads may be all old, and lying around without any progress. Hence if there is any deviation from a uniformly distributed weighted value, it could be a sign of trouble.

3. Lead Qualification Ratio – This report shows only 73% leads are being qualified, while in the previous report, 92% leads were being qualified. This may indicate that leads being captured are not good enough, or as in this case (evident from the inactive projects), the sales person is too lazy to work on the leads.

4. Order Conversation Ratio – This report shows an extraordinarily high order conversion ratio of 67% – a sure sign of trouble!!! A high order conversion ratio is a sure indication of under-utilization of sales resources. The earlier report showed only 7% conversion, but all other KPIs were good.

Had we used the conventional method of measuring performance only on value of orders converted, the second sales person would have been considered a better performer than the first. On2Biz pipeline report therefore simplifies the performance management by using a broader set of Key Performance Indicators, which ensure consistent sales effectiveness across the entire sales team.

Feature Changes: Workspace dashboard menu with Activity List and Pipeline

admin — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 07:36:21 +0000

On2Biz facilities have been divided into two sections:

Workspace – where the user manages and reports activities and processes
Reports – where the user analyzes performance through various types of reports

Each of these sections have the corresponding menu, which acts like a dashboard for quick access to the facilities in the section.

We review here, the Workspace dashboard menu, and the changes we have implemented based on feedback from users.

The workspace menu consists of the following facilities:

1. Activity List

a. Scheduled Appointments – lists the appointments that are due today or overdue
b. Pending Tasks – lists the tasks that are due today or pending from before
c. Unread Notes – lists notes that have been added in projects where the user is an project manager or project team member
d. Active Projects
- by Milestone – lists projects that have shown progress in milestones in the last 1 week
- by Activity – lists projects that have shown some activity (calls/tasks/notes) in the last 1 week
e. Inactive Projects
- by Milestone – lists projects that have shown NO progress in milestones in the last 1 week
- by Activity – lists projects that have shown NO activity (calls/tasks/notes) in the last 1 week

2. Projects Pipeline

The projects pipeline shows the number of projects that are currently at various milestones. Previously we used to show all projects where the current user has permissions to view. Hence, a user will see all projects where:
a. The user is a project manager
b. The user is a project team member
c. The user is a category manager for a product category which is being sold
d. The user is a member of top management (and will see ALL projects for all users)

So for individual users who are not category managers or members of top management, the pipeline shows projects where that user is a project manager or a project team member.

While for managers, it would show all projects where they have permissions to view, which include projects that they are themselves project managers/project team members, as well as other users’ projects.

Some of the managers who are using On2Biz have brought to our notice that it is difficult for them to view their own projects from the workspace pipeline. If they want to view projects belonging to their subordinates, they can use the reports, where one can choose the user and see the sales pipeline in detail.

This made sense to us, so we have now created an option in the user preferences, to indicate whether the workspace pipeline should show subordinates pipeline or only the user’s own pipeline.

Hence if you are a manager, and you set your preference “show subordinates pipeline in workspace” to no, then your workspace pipeline will show only projects where:
a. The user is a project manager
b. The user is a project team member

This will affect the number of projects that appear in your pipeline if you are a category manager or a member of the top management.

By default, the workspace pipeline will include your subordinates projects. To see only your individual projects in the workspace pipeline, change your preferences “show subordinates pipeline in workspace” to yes.

Keeping It Simple is Not So Easy! (KISNOSE)

admin — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 06:33:01 +0000

One of the biggest challenges in On2Biz development is to manage a complex set of features required for users to manage their business online, while keeping the interface as simple as possible. One of the gurus of Web application design, Luke Wroblewski describes in an article on UX Matters, a magazine for usability titled “The complexity of simplicity”, about why making things simple is so difficult:

Perceived simplicity can often conflict with actual simplicity of usage – Users initially associate simplicity by the lack of options. A ’simple’ interface is perceived to be one where there are very few options. However, that is not necessarily easy to use. An interface that provides ready access to features that may otherwise be difficult to access greatly simplifies the usability of the system. Managing this balance is one of the most difficult skills in designing user interfaces
Actions that provide real value — and drive revenue — often have formidable learning curves – It is evident that users who learn to use all the features of the the tool deliver higher performance. But the learning curve required to become power users is steep. Hence the interface has to manage users at all stages of this learning curve. And this balance is a moving target, because as we add more features to On2Biz, experienced users will move ahead, while making the initial jump higher for new users. This is what makes our job difficult, but interesting
Gradual engagement, the most frequently cited solution for managing complexity, is actually quite difficult to design and build – The approach that On2Biz uses is to gradually get users accustomed to the various features available. Initially, users are expected to only manage their pipelines, then gradually move on to managing their tasks and appointments, then move ahead to task optimization and improving throughput. Managing this gradual engagement of the user is one of the challenges for the On2Biz development team. As Luke says, “In order to present the right user interface to the right user at the right time, designers must track multiple types of users and their various states, then map those contexts to an appropriate presentation of features and content. This, of course, is a non-trivial challenge and, as a result, is often done poorly. If the logic is not thought through completely, some users end up with too many options, while others feel they have too few”

Another issue with simplicity is the perceived value of the solution by prospective customers of On2Biz. Often, the simplicity is mistaken for lack of features. Customers evaluating a business management solution often look for the most features in the system they buy. But often, the result is that nobody uses the system!

In another post titled “The sweet spot for buying“, Luke refers to a Harward Business Review article which describes how:

“Before using a product, people will judge its desirability and quality based on ‘what it does’ (i.e. the number of features). Even though they may be aware that usability is likely to suffer, they will mostly choose products with many features. After having used these products however, usability will start to matter more than features and people will choose easy-to-use products over products with many features. The dilemma is that in order to maximize initial sales one needs to build products with many features, products that do lots of “stuff”. But in order to maximize repeat sales, customer satisfaction and retention one needs to prioritize ease-of-use over features.”

The accompanying graph also summarizes this very well:

Our major effort in On2Biz is to manage this optimal level of features that ensures we have all the “bells and whistles” that new customers will look for in choosing a system, as well as keep the fluff out for regular users who are only concerned about productivity.

Feature Changes: Workspace dashboard menu with Activity List and Pipeline

On2Biz virtual development team, thanks to open source

admin — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 18:36:22 +0000

I recently met someone who sells Microsoft CRM to companies in the Middle East. When I demonstrated On2Biz to him, he was really impressed with how much we have achieved. But he raised one important question about On2Biz – how can you compete with the likes of Microsoft with their huge development team, marketing and sales channel and deep pockets?

Here is the first part of the answer – the development resources that are behind On2Biz are probably as big as the development team of any large product development company, thanks to the open source applications that On2Biz is based on.

On2Biz uses the following major open source components. If you combine the total number of developers who continuously support and upgrade these applications, I would venture to guess that the number would be in thousands!

Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl (LAMP) – is the server framework. All our development computers also run on Linux. There is no doubt about the stability of this platform any more, which is evident from the wide spread support from industry bigwigs for this platform
Berkley DB – the object database that we use to store native XML objects. The fact that Oracle recently bought Berkley DB shows the kind of traction BDB has. Remains to be seen whether it will remain open source for long, though.
Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) – several hundreds of modules from CPAN have saved us several man years of development, and continue to provide regular updates at no cost.
Firefox / Mozilla – the main browser that is supported by On2Biz (we are planning to support IE in the near future, but right now prefer to spend time developing the core features rather than waste time creating work arounds to handle browser vagaries. Fortunately, our users are not complaining too much)
jQuery – poetry in javascript originally coded by John Resig, master of Javascript, and now supported by several other developers. jQuery forms the core of the On2Biz interface, with several plugins that add further value thanks to their respective authors.
Wordpress – this site runs on Wordpress, the coolest blog software there is. The blog helps to keep the entire On2Biz community in the loop, as well as keeps prospective users informed about the service. This would otherwise have taken a whole marketing and customer support team.
Subversion (SVN) – this is a version management system that helps us to keep track of all development changes we make to the entire code base. Since we use an iterative development process, tracking changes and the ability to revert back to any previous version is extremely important. Subversion also has a huge development team supporting it.

We are using several more open source applications as part of our development process. There are tools like Inkscape, GIMP and Open Office that we use for designing the interface and documentation, libraries like Open Clipart, and public domain graphics by generous souls like Mark James which give us access to a huge virtual design team.

As you can see, using open source resources and platforms has effectively provided us with a virtual development team consisting of hundreds of programmers and designers which would otherwise have costs millions of dollars. And the fact that none of these developers actually are employed by us ensures that they will never leave , hence its a very stable work force!

And then there are our users! Most of On2Biz features planning and quality control is done by the users! We have a loyal set of users who tirelessly use the application, test it, give us feedback and suggestions that keeps On2Biz functioning smoothly and growing in value for everyone.