Xpages and why my tendency to Gold Plate has got harder to manage.
Sean Cull 26 July 2010 22:06:03
When we are working on a new application we often talk about bronze, silver and gold plating.
I have a tendency to want to make things too good when in fact the customer is no better off for my efforts, we refer to this as Sean's Silver or Gold plating. Its a particular issue as we almost always work to a fixed price and experience has also shown me that every extra bell and whistle increases testing and support throughout the life of the application.
Xpages allows you to take this to whole new levels because the traditional constraints imposed by designing applications within the Notes client have been removed. Now you can have two equally functional Xpage applications that are wildly different in terms of the interface bells and whistles.
The new functionality is obviously much welcomed and as we develop more design patterns it gets easier but it does make me wonder if it is also a risk to Notes ?
I have heard the opinion expressed several times over the years that one Notes real strengths was that you could ( only ) produce cheap applications and it was therefore very competitive. With Xpages even a simple departmental app can now be very feature rich ( or Gold Plated ). Pricing ourselves out of jobs or failing to deliver value for money to our customers is now something that we have to work harder at because our toolbox is so much bigger. A good problem to have but one that needs thought.
Sean
Opinion Xpages Lotus
2Stephan H. Wissel 27.7.2010 2:17:09 With great powers .... With a little discipline you can reconcile your urge to gold-plate with time and budget constrains. XPages make it easier than ever to build your portfolio of reusable components, so the incremental effort for implementing and testing drops dramatically. Using the OneUI you can avoid tinkering in UI too much. I agree with Tim: Taking the step back and looking for the ideal process will reveal where the gold plating makes sense.
3Dick Stagnone 27.7.2010 14:49:47 Gold plated is now the morn Useability and appearance requirements are now greater than they had been in the past. So I no longer think of Gold Plating as optional. One line I am trying to draw is between UI which is used by the masses and that used for admin functions. I am trying to keep admin type functions (those with a small collection of users) as Notes client forms. Still early so not sure if customers will be confused by the difference in appearance. But "for the masses" it will always be XPages from here on out. There is a learning curve and perhaps with more experience and future XPages enhancements, the Gold Plating will not take a lot of extra time.
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1Tim Tripcony 26.7.2010 23:11:48 Indeed
Sean, that's very true... it's now more tempting than ever to add in something the customer doesn't really need because the cost of doing so drops so dramatically with XPages. Sadly, the customer doesn't automatically gain ROI from features they didn't ask for just by having them available.
On the other hand, however, we're finding that the removal of constraints allows us to include features customers always wanted but did not previously ask for because they assumed based on previous experience that it was impossible (or, at the least, cost-inhibitive).
It's crucial to first get the customer talking about their ideal process as opposed to functionality or interface, and then guide them to an end result that realizes the process vision, using the visual and functional capabilities that are now at our fingertips. That combination provides the ultimate value balance, while still awakening the customer to what's now possible... instead of either throwing in unnecessary bling just because we can or allowing them to continue to believe the ancient limitations still apply.