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Growing Up
March 22, 2006
It has been a number of months since Test Run received an update, which begs the question, “what has the Test Run team been up to?” A valid question, and one a number of customers have asked me over IM and email. I embarked on creating Test Run not because I wanted to produce a cool demo, or the latest Web 2.0 product craze, which I feel fuels a lot of invention in the industry recently. I started this project because a number of people I trust and whose opinions I put a lot of stock in, told me that the product I was building had real value to them personally. That inspired me to finish a project I started a long time ago, and to take a stab at creating a better way to do test planning, management, execution and reporting.
Test Run is not just an exercise in technology. This is not an engineers next Ruby on Rails toy. This is not another To Do list application, or yet another reinvention of a tool using Ajax. This is a product; a product that others will depend upon to make critical business decisions. If I am successful, then managers will look at a Test Run dashboard to help them make one of the most critical decisions in a product’s lifecycle: “to ship or not to ship.”
That weighs heavily upon me.
So what have I been working on in the last couple of months? First, I have been working on nurturing my wife who is preparing with me for our first child (due in May), which has been a joy. But in regards to work I committed to a one of the hardest decisions I have had to make thus far about Test Run. You see, I am one with the propensity to want to own the whole solution, to prove that “yes, I can do it all.” But just because I can, doesn’t mean I should. In fact, Test Run needs the perspective of outsiders to be successful. As much as I can excel working on my own, I thrive in a creative and collaborative environment.
So I sought out partners that could not only help with the work load, but more importantly push me and the product in new ways and directions. And that is exactly what I found. Test Run will no longer be the product of a single individual, but the result of a team dedicated to Test Run’s success.
And Test Run will soon see the benefits of this partnership in the coming months. Some trade offs were made in regards to specific features, in favor of taking a fresh look at the overall user experience, which I had taken for granted having been so intimately involved with its development. What we have come up with is exciting, and far easier and more efficient to use. So stay tuned, Test Run development has slowed, but has not stopped. Soon we will harvest to fruits of our labors and a new version of Test Run will be unveiled.
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About Byrne Reese
Byrne Reese is a product manager by day and an engineer by night.
He conceived of Test Run to help project managers like him stay up to date and informed of what his team was working on.
Today, the 1000th person downloaded Test Run. Without a doubt, this project of mine is the one I am most proud of. The feedback I have received from users is extraordinary, and each person who tells me how this apparently... [Read More]
From majordojo on April 7, 2006 12:53 PM