How we roll
2016-03-23

We are very committed to being open at TroopTrack about what we are working on, what we are struggling with, etc. While this is generally a good thing, it gets us in trouble with users sometimes who feel we should be working on something else. I've been thinking about this a lot today because of some recent exchanges we've had on Facebook and I'd like to explain a bit about how TroopTrack works.

 

First of all, we don't all work on everything, nor can we. We divide things up, and some of the work we do requires experience and education. Here's how TroopTrack work is divided up.

 

- Marc works on our mobile applications (iOS and Android). He's the only one with this particular skill.

- Ryan, Spencer, and I work on the web application. Ryan and I also do consulting work for our enterprise clients such as Trail Life USA and American Heritage Girls.

- Claire, Sam, Wesley, and Coleman are primarily responsible for answering your questions and identifying any important bugs that you report.

- Melissa is primarily responsible for configuring TroopTrack to support specific programs. She adds achievement, training, etc and works with customers who have asked us to add support for their organization to get everything set up.

 

I want to clarify this because it's pretty common for us to announce something I am working on and have someone say something like "You should be working on the Android app instead," as if me adding some new feature to our web product is somehow preventing Marc from moving forward with our Android app.

 

This is simply not the case. I can't really help with the Android app, and Marc can't really help with the web app. Heart surgeons don't generally do kidney transplants and vice versa, even though they are surgeons. Programmers are no different.

 

Likewise, when we add support for a new organization, like Search and Rescue Groups, there is virtually no programming involved. Melissa does almost everything to set them up. She can't write code, so her doing this work doesn't prevent Ryan, Spencer, and I from adding new features and fixing bugs. We don't stop working on our backlog of bug fixes and feature requests just because Melissa is adding a new group.

 

I share all of this in the spirit of openness and friendliness. I hope nothing I have written will be perceived as haughty or uncaring. We love TroopTrack and we try very hard to make it better every single day. We don't always succeed, and sometimes we make it better in ways that only benefit some of our customers, but we keep at it, and we hope it shows.

 

Have a great night,

 

~ Dave

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