Anyone who uses LENS can submit a feature request on to Intercom or Userfeed. What actually happens to that request once it is received? And what does it take for the engineers to make it reality?
When you submit at ticket to us (either a bug or a feature request), we have a daily meeting as Engineers and Client Experts to discuss the ask at hand. During that meeting, the ticket will either be moved from “Under Review” to “Closed”, or merged with a similar ticket already open in our system.
The typical lifecycle of a bug fix or feature request:
Open: the issue is ready for the product manager to review.
Under Review: the issue is being assessed by the Product Manager and UI/UX Designer before planning or closing the issue.
Planned: the issue is selected to be worked on in the future. The Product Team transforms people's abstract goals and intent into outlines for working software.
In Progress: the issue is actively being worked on at the moment by a UI/UX Designer and Software Engineer. This step includes various submission and verification processes between the Engineers and Quality Assurance team.
Complete: the issue is finished and deployed to clients.
Closed: the issue is determined to be of not high enough priority, another solution has been found, or the feature is no longer necessary.
To our developers, writing code is easy. Prioritizing what code to write and moving those changes through the process is more difficult. Thankfully, our product team consists of a Product Manager, a Designer, Software Engineers, Quality Assurance Engineers, and Client Experience Experts -- all united with the goal to make LENS the best it can be!
⭐️ Cool Fact ⭐️ Any piece of LENS code written for new features will fall under a minimum of 2, but typically 6 or 7 sets of eyes and minds! We also have automated testing to supplement the human eye.
S&R's product team accomplishes more than bug fixes and feature requests!
Aside from the regular improvements and fixes, the product developers of S&R create quarterly plans that include large bodies of work that can be broken down and tracked on micro levels. These larger initiatives or projects are delivered over the course of the quarter and are presented to the rest of the company before deployment.
Typically, these projects go through a cycle that looks something like this:
analysis
design
planning
development
implementation
testing
deployment
maintenance
Agile Development
Our product team is deeply committed to agile software development principles. We definitely have long term strategic goals we are working toward, but we are constantly evaluating what is most critical to work on right now. What this means for you is that any piece of feedback you give us will be evaluated immediately and prioritized against everything else we have planned. It is not first come first served. Because of this we cannot provide dates certain when a particular feature or fix will be delivered, as our priorities may shift at any time, but rest assured your voice is valued and heard.
We strive to always deliver the software changes that provide the most value to the most people first.
Your feedback is the lifeblood of our process. Collaboration with our customers is what makes LENS the transformative tool that it is. Please keep that feedback coming!