Don’t mix developers with customers…

At the end of another customer council meeting, one thing was abundantly clear –  our customers have no intention of being faceless names on a list somewhere. They have opinions, they are vocal, and they would very much like to be a part of the development process.

Hot button topics were support, roadmap visibility and role management. The last was particulary interesting. Having participated in many one-on-one discussions about it over the last few months, it was fascinating to see how the topic exploded in the meeting into a cacophony of thoughts, rants and ideas. Everyone had a different idea of what roles are, how relevant it is to their identity projects, and what they would like to be able to do. Some people were candid enough to admit that they had no idea where to begin, while others (surprisingly) said that they couldn’t care less. And the number of people who talked about failed role management projects was a little disconcerting.

Talk about jumping out of the frying pan…