Every component manufacturer should hold a ‘software meeting’ as a regularly scheduled event. The software meeting is a recognition of the importance of design and management software to the organization and a proactive attempt to use that software to gain the fullest advantage for the organization.
Why hold a software meeting?
The software that plays such a significant role in our businesses is complex and ever-changing. How do take maximum advantage? We have to invest time as a company to review all aspects of our software use. What’s new in the latest release? Should we be using it? How does it work? What problems do we have? What do we most need that we don’t have? These are all questions that are best answered in a group setting, with everyone participating and contributing – even the boss!
How often?
At least once every quarter, but it also makes sense to hold one every time a software release is announced. For MiTek customers this means five time a year. This may seem like a lot, but the features and fixes are coming fast, and the only way to stay on top is to have frequent group reviews.
Proposed Software Meeting Agenda
This meeting, like all meetings in the organization, needs to be time-boxed and laser-focused.
Feature Review – Two weeks prior to the meeting the design manager reviews the latest Release Notes and assigns one (or more) new features to each designer to research. Each designer comes prepared to show the feature, describe what its intended uses are, and offer an opinion as to its value to the organization. A general discussion then decides if the organization is going to begin using the new features and what steps are needed to implement it. The group should be mindful of how to use the feature to the organization’s best advantage and how to do so consistently. This means everyone is on board, doing things in the same way so as to deliver a consistent product to customers.
Problem Review – What’s slowing me down or holding me back? What’s annoying me? What do I wish I could do that I can’t now? Every designer and software user should be called on to contribute. The group should attempt to expose as many of these problems as possible, Having participated in many software discussion like this, you can expect that between 25% and 50% of the problem raised will be solved by other software users who have simply learned (better) how the software works, or developed tricks or workarounds that take much of the sting out of the problem. The others should be noted on a “Problem List” that is then forwarded to the software rep.
Idea Time – What could really make us more productive? What would we like to know that we don’t know now? What part of my job would I most like to unload, and why? These type of questions frequently touch on both software and business processes and the Software Meeting is a good time to talk about improvements in both. It is essential that managers participate and talk about the information that they need to allow them to manage better. Every organization could improve if it knew more about itself, particularly about performance. Can we get that data? How? Again, a software wish list may be the result – a list that should be shared with the software rep. Alternatively, why not invite the rep to the meeting?
The software being discussed should ‘cover the field;’ it should not be restricted to one vendor. In many companies the ERP software plays a key role, in others, several different vendors provide design and estimating software. Its best to look at the overall picture to look for duplication of effort or discovering ways to integrate the different solutions.