Wednesday, August 06, 2014

Wendy 3.0: 5 year retrospective

16 August 2014 marks the 5th anniversary of the Wendy 3.0 system. As we prep for the anniversary, I  want to celebrate the progress made in the system and do a post mortem on what has gone well and what could go better, and what the future looks like for future releases of Wendy 3.0.

First off, what has gone well.

  1. The spec It has required little change as it set out a broad range of features to be developed, deleted and merged. It's the spec of a lifetime of evolution, it sets a good north star for our long range plan (LRP). 
  2. The development process Has been steady and made great progress. 
  3. Beta testing The testing process surfaced considerable issues with the system. Some issues were so extensive, we had to take some aspects of the system offline to address the issues. Unexpectedly, by taking those aspects offline, we discovered features and strengths in the system that we had not anticipated. Overall, beta testing has been an excellent feedback loop in maintaining and evolving the system.
What could have gone better?
Since this was our first attempt at such a systemic overhaul, we think things have gone pretty damn well. We have no regrets and will continue to execute on future issues with the same methods, openness and trust that we've developed the last 5 years.

What does the future look like?
The future is so bright, we'll need to wear shades. Seriously though, we envision a lifetime of evolution, continued agile annual releases and many new challenges and opportunities.

While I've done most of the work, it would not have been possible without all of the beta testers, sysadmins, PMs, developers, designers and other systems/applications that the Wendy 3.0 system interacts with and relies on. Thank you so much for your data, your cycles, your energy and your feedback. 

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