atrify GMBH agile @ atrify: Agile product development at atrify - from our beginnings to today's process

As befits an agile product development process, atrify has also continued to develop over the past few years. In my blog post today I would like to tell a little about this process and how it has matured from our first steps in the agile area to our current, customer-centric product cycle.

Essentially, two major areas influence the content of our releases: The input from our strategic portfolio management and what we as the product owner generate as ideas and feedback through the community and the active users of the applications.

We don't know what our users want. At least not until we ask them about it. And that's exactly where we are now investing a huge amount of effort.

Regular surveys of our customers provide us with quantitative feedback on their satisfaction and missing features. This is usually done in the form of interview sheets, which allow answers on the basis of a scale, as well as openly formulated questions about features that are, for example, most missed.

For about two years we have been measuring the Net Promoter Score on the one hand and carrying out a system usability test on the other. In simple terms, the Net Promoter Score is a recommendation rate, the value of which should ideally be increased with each new survey. The system usability test takes the form of a standardized questionnaire in order to receive quantitative feedback on the usability of the software.

Further valuable quantitative feedback allows us to collect data in the form of business analytics or feature measurement via Google Analytics. Here we can see exactly how often certain features are used in the applications or we can find out about interruptions in the user journey.

On the one hand, we receive valuable information on improving certain processes and features, but we also know which features are not well received and can simplify and purify the software if necessary. The users are happy because it offers a tidy interface with only the useful features and the developers because the software is less complex.

Simplicity - the art of maximizing the amount of work not done - is essential

Based on the surveys mentioned above, it happens again and again that we react to individual feedback in the form of user interviews and seek personal contact with individual users.

Most of these user interviews are based on negative feedback. Here it is often worthwhile to research the users concerned about what caused the negative feedback and how the situation can be improved if necessary. Quite often there are quick wins here that can be implemented quickly and easily in order to bring about an improvement.

As a 100% subsidiary of GS1 Germany, we also work with GS1 organizations all over the world. For them we operate our application in their countries and under their patronage as a service. In this case, these GS1 organizations act as multipliers in their markets. They know trade and industry as well as the processes and expectations there best.

Reason enough to dedicate their own format to these key customers, which we have dubbed “We listen”. Here these customers have the opportunity to exchange ideas with us about the activities in their markets and to inform us about changes and feature requests. It is not uncommon for there to be similarities across the various organizations.

But not only the direct, but also the indirect line to the customer provides important insights. Therefore, we also work closely with sales and potential customers on the one hand, as well as with support and active customers on the other. Especially the support, who is closest to the customer and usually knows exactly how they work and how they use the application, is essential when it comes to discovering and clustering problem areas in the use of our software.