Test Run

One of the hardest tasks of a product manager is striking a balance between developing one of the cool features that you have been talking about forever, or fixing one the many nagging issues that has been annoying your users for an equally long time. If you are lucky then you have the resources to devote to both and circumstances will give you the freedom to make that choice, because sometimes circumstances demand that certain issues are addressed.

Test Run faces this challenge like every other product. For the past several months a design team and I have been iterating on a new user interface for Test Run. The new UI will be a great leap in usability. Meanwhile, Test Run development has stagnated. Major bugs have pestered users and prevented wide adoption. So it is time to shift our focus back to development. While the design team starts to build out the new user interface, I have turned my attention back to the existing application focusing on bug squashing, and the polish necessary to prepare for a broader launch.

To be frank, I regret assigning the label “beta” to Test Run. It should have been labeled “alpha” as Test Run is still quite rough around the edges. But that doesn’t seem to deter people. More users download and sign up for Test Run everyday, a testament to the promise is has for enterprises.