Did you ever hop in a car and just start driving with no destination? I know someone who used to do that for relaxation, but while I do enjoy a good road trip, the destination is far more important for me than the journey. My Mom lives nine hours away, and I love to go visit her. I know the routes like the back of my hand and just get to enjoy the ride—precisely because I know where I’m going.
Most people wouldn’t sign up for a cruise that refused to tell them what stops were planned or even where the ship was going. But those same people are currently in a boat built by either IT or vendors and they have no clue where that boat is going. This is an issue with the software industry, not with the people in question. I recall a couple of memorable cases (not naming names here, but you no doubt were a victim of or heard of at least one of the examples I can think of off the top of my head) where a vendor suddenly announced they were changing everything, and customers would have to deal with it (moving platform, changing licensing, suddenly becoming a product in a different market …)
That’s crazy. Honestly. You could have a piece of software central to your DevOps operation suddenly change to be less useful or even unsuitable. A company you have a contract with. The advent of “commodity” virtual hardware and everything-as-a-service has made us lose sight of the fact that customers have a need for stability and are not in the least wrong to demand it.
And that brings us to today’s actual topic. More and more vendors respond to “What’s on your roadmap?” questions with, “We’re agile, so we are constantly improving.” That is a non-answer. I am a human, so I’m constantly improving, too. Weaning from a bottle at 18 or 24 months says nothing about the roadmap from today for the next 18 months. As an analyst, I generally start advising users that this stance is bad for them and they should demand any vendor they do business with have a plan that they can count on for at least the next 12 months. And that they should leave vendors that don’t have that, and not sign with ones that won’t if not already a customer. Agile means you are making constant changes. We didn’t ask how often you update; we need to know where you are steering your product. If you can’t answer that question, no one can, and the product is in jeopardy.
The problem is, because we, too, are agile, a lot of IT shops are doing the same thing to their customers. While the feedback loop is shorter and more direct, the fact is that most of you have surprised business users with some new thing. The fact that they often are thrilled to have it doesn’t change the fact that they should have known it was coming long before implementation. Agile doesn’t excuse bad communications, and DevOps is not short for ‘random change on a whim.’
So, demand your vendors offer you predictability – even in a fast-changing market – and offer predictability to your users. It only takes a second to update (automated or via email, Slack, whatever) customers that a change is in the works but not assigned yet. Or even just got assigned; just offer some warning. Be good to your users, and demand vendors be good to you. Agile, DevOps and SaaS do not require unannounced changes (good or bad), so stop acting like they are acceptable when notification systems are already set up.
In short: Stop saying, “We don’t know where we are going, but we’re Agile, so we are getting there super fast!” And stop letting vendors say it to you. You are knocking it out of the park every day. Systems run and people use them and all works as intended… Because of you. Now consider letting users know when changes are coming – not just the big ones, but the ones hidden in “We’re Agile!” Make your vendors do the same to give you peace of mind, too.