A New Perspective on the "15 Minute Fix"

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As someone who has worked with the eTapestry product for almost 15 years, and done a variety of things around the product, I have a unique perspective when it comes to the engineering side of eTapestry.  When I  ran eTapestry customer support, the job was always to find a solution to a customer's issue.  Many times that involved some type of workaround when the customer was in need of something that the product could not do.  Sitting in that seat, I always wondered why the engineers just couldn't add or fix the issue programatically.  Just write some code and let's give that customer what they need was my thinking.  I remember many conversations I had with our technical team, always good, but sometimes feeling frustrated by them just not adding what I felt was needed in the product.  Then I moved over to the Product side and sat in their chair!

I have been on the Products team for almost two years now and I happen to see the world a bit differently now.  It really is a situation where when you walk in someone else's shoes, you see exactly why they have opinions or work differently than you think.  I admit that I thought I was going to come over and save every customer we had, make support's job easy, and best yet, have adoring throngs of customers because I fixed this issue, or added something that this customer needed, or just made the whole product so much better that there were no complaints.  That didn't happen, but it didn't happen for lots of good reasons, and not because I couldn't impose my will on the Engineering team.  You see by sitting in this seat, the Product Manager seat, which by the way is the one that determines what goes and does not go into the product, or when something is released, or if we say "no" to suggestions from our customers or not, I realized something important.  If we did what I had always wanted to (just write those few lines of code each time a customer needed something), the eTapestry system would be a far worse off piece of software than when I took over the job.  It would be much harder to learn, harder to use, slower to use, and the list goes on and on. You see when I thought I was the one fighting for the customer all the time on the support side, the product team was doing the same thing.

Our job is to make the best possible software for your organizations so that you can raise the most funds to support every one of your incredible causes and I feel like we do that very well.  Yes, we can get better, all of us can, and please realize we try to do that each and every time we put a release out there.  We look at all the wonderful suggestions from our customers, we look at the newest trends, try to see what is ahead of the curve, and even around the next bend to determine what will be in the eTapestry system.  So the next time you start to think that eTapestry Engineers just don't understand why you need that piece of functionality in the eTap system, remember, we are on your side too.  We are watching out for you and the thousands of other customers that use our system on a daily basis, giving you a powerful software you can use to complete your mission.

If you have any questions about a suggestion or why something works the way it does, then don't hesitate to reach out to me at mike.rusche@blackbaud.com

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