Stakeholders value innovation over stability in software updates. How do you navigate this delicate balance?

Navigating the balance between innovation and stability in software updates can feel like walking a tightrope. To keep everyone happy, start by really understanding what your stakeholders need. This means diving deep into conversations with end-users, decision-makers, and support teams to grasp their requirements and pain points. At People's Inc. 360, our martech solution is designed to do just that. We align updates with the actual needs of your users, rolling out innovations that bring real value without rocking the boat too much. Our approach ensures critical functions remain stable while pushing forward with exciting new features. It’s all about finding that sweet spot where innovation meets reliability!

Bu drawing a product value score for each innovative feature and then adding a high level estimated cost to all of them would help stakeholders take the right decision interms of defining the next feature for the stability of the product

Balancing innovation and stability in software updates involves a tech-driven approach that prioritizes stakeholder perspectives. Maintain clear communication with stakeholders using advanced survey tools to understand their needs and expectations. Implement new features incrementally. Address issues early, Invest in automated testing frameworks and continuous integration systems to ensure stability. Use agile development practices for rapid iterations and effective prioritization. Enhance overall experience with comprehensive digital documentation and training . This approach ensures innovative updates while maintaining stability, effectively meeting stakeholder expectation.

It is very important to consider an agile team under a scrum, lean methodology that allows defining short-term objectives and executing innovation with tangible actions through a team defined in leadership and transversal collaboration roles, showing tangible results, the appropriate modifications and also learn from the experience. I recommend The PDA (Plan Do Check Act) methodology for Industrial Physical to Digital Transformation Projects.

Product innovation is always good but without stability, confidence in the product will be degraded as the product faces competition in its market place. The stakeholders must therefore understand this risk and decide on the point where innovation and stability are optimized.

Balancing innovation and stability in software updates is like walking a tightrope. At People's Inc. 360, we excel in this by focusing on comprehensive risk analysis and understanding our users' needs. We engage with end-users, decision-makers, and support teams to align updates with real value without destabilising core functions. Our martech solutions ensure every update enhances performance and security without introducing significant risks. With People's Inc. 360, you get the best of both worlds: Cutting-edge innovation and dependable stability. Let's innovate smartly!

Innovation without risk management is a recipe for disaster. It’s crucial to have a solid risk analysis framework to evaluate potential pitfalls and develop mitigation strategies. Actionable Strategy: ? Implement a Risk Management Protocol: Before rolling out updates, conduct thorough risk assessments. Develop contingency plans for identified risks to ensure stability during the transition. Why This Works: ? This approach minimizes disruptions, ensuring that your innovative strides don’t destabilize your operations.

The balance is always about risk and reward. When the scale tilts to the extreme either way, that is where serious problems occur. It will be a rare case when you can balance the two evenly. But the goal should be to: 1) educate senior leaders and board members to not only the innovative gains, but also the inherent and residual risks associated to the innovation. Clearly communicate and articulate what risks have to be addressed and why. 2) Gain the understanding of your corporate risk appetite and what risks leaders are willing to accept. 3) Whatever isn’t addressed up front, prepare formal risk acceptance documents to be signed by key stakeholders and leaders. Document plans for how and when the risks will be addressed.

As I said before, unstable software is a greater risk in the long run. For example Windows OS Yes it adds innovations but most hate it due to stability issues that were there since the get go

Navigating the balance between innovation and stability in software updates is crucial. At People's Inc. 360, we embrace an iterative approach, releasing updates in smaller, manageable increments. This allows us to monitor impact and make quick adjustments, ensuring that new features don't disrupt critical functions. Continuous feedback from our users helps refine our innovations, keeping our martech solutions both cutting-edge and reliable. This strategy ensures we're always improving while maintaining the stability our stakeholders value.

Adopting an Agile methodology, we broke down the implementation into several sprints. In each sprint, we developed and tested a small portion of the new feature. This iterative approach allowed us to make continuous improvements based on feedback and to ensure that each increment was stable before moving on to the next. It also helped in gradually introducing changes to the users, making the transition smoother.

A lot of time users do not know they want until they see or touch something. This is the reason why iterative development is important because you develop something small and show users to get feedback. When users see and touch the application, ideas will flow to them and suddenly your requirements get clearer. As you iterate and engage more with users, you suddenly realise you can guess what the users want.

Embracing an iterative approach to software development brings several benefit. One of them being to be able to refine the customer requirement as you got feedback from the customer at every iteration. The end customer sees the product as it evolves at each iteration and being able to correct it if needed very early in the software development.

For me the best way to handle this balance is to do it iteratively. You need to balance new features and stability both and so in that case release features in groups which are well tested and stable.

Balancing innovation and stability in software updates is crucial. Here's how we handle it at People's Inc. 360: 1. Assess Needs We engage with stakeholders to ensure updates deliver real value without disrupting critical functions. 2. Risk Analysis We weigh the benefits of new features against potential risks to performance and security. 3. Iterative Approach We release updates in small, manageable increments, allowing quick adjustments based on real-world feedback. 4. Testing Rigor We conduct rigorous testing in controlled environments to catch issues before they affect users. People's Inc. 360's martech solutions ensure you can innovate while maintaining stability.

One thing that I have found extremely helpful over my 30+ years in the technology arena is the fact that you must have rigorous testing the fact that a organization did not test their tool, such as crowd strike this past week really goes improves that people are overlooking the very basics in the technology Arena. You must rigorously test in a sandbox in an environment in a quality environment before you move anything to production that is going to affect yourself your customers and the global entity.

Full Lifecycle Testing is recommended whether using traditional Waterfall, Iterative of Agile Development Process. So at every stage from idea to post release the functional and non-functional elements of the software need to have test cases, test packs, test scenarios ready to roll

Innovation and development is crucial to meet business and operational needs. At the same time untested components and user interactions may result in unexpected consequences from minor bugs to poorly tuned queries resulting in high database cpu consumption and a major incident. Therefore it is critical to perform testing at ask stages of development including behaviour driven testing to identify any issues and mitigate these before a new product or update is released into production.

Rigorous testing was a critical part of the implementation. We developed comprehensive test cases covering unit, integration, and user acceptance testing. Automated testing scripts were created to ensure that new code did not adversely affect existing functionalities. Additionally, we conducted performance testing to ensure the new analytics feature did not degrade system performance during peak usage times.

User training is extremely important when rolling out new features and functionality. There would no point of new updates if user doesn’t know how to operate and enhance their efficiency and experience with the product.

Es necesario que los usuarios vean, en su trabajo del día a día, que la actualización de software les permita hacer su trabajo con la misma fluidez o más. Por esta razón, es fundamental seleccionar key users con la visión de todo el proceso, y que, con la ayuda del consultor de implementación, identifique qué partes del proceso serán mejores con las innovaciones y nuevas funcionalidades de la actualización de software. Y estos puntos deben ser enfatizados en las formaciones, con ejemplos concretos, datos reales, e incluso liderando ejercicios directos en el sistema por parte de los usuarios finales.

To ensure that the users were well-prepared for the new feature, we organized training sessions and created detailed user manuals. Training covered both the functionality of the new analytics tools and best practices for their use. We also set up a helpdesk to assist users with any questions or issues they might encounter post-implementation

We established a feedback loop by setting up regular meetings with key users and stakeholders. These meetings allowed us to gather input on the new feature’s performance and usability. Based on the feedback, we made necessary adjustments and improvements, ensuring that the feature met user expectations without compromising system stability

Yo siempre he sido de la opinión que los propios resultados hablarán sobre las experiencias de usuario. Me explico: si una innovación permite una mayor productividad, quedará reflejado en el hecho que los usuarios, a los pocos días, no darán mala opinión sobre el cambio, y las personas que dirigen los departamentos observarán que la información se transmite de manera más ágil, y se observará una mayor permeabilidad por su parte para introducir nuevos cambios. Lo bueno, siempre llamará a lo bueno. Por contra, una mala experiencia en la introducción de cambios provocará un efecto adverso en el interés hacia innovaciones que no impacten en el fondo de un proceso de negocio, o que no solucione ninguna situación concreta.

This is why AI is not going to take over the world. The situation proposed has to be one of the most preposterous I’ve ever seen. NO stakeholder values innovation over stability. Stability is like gravity. The expectation is that it just “is”. You earn the right to innovate BECAUSE your environment/services are stable. It’s not an either/or choice. It’s a sequence of events. Stable ?? = right to innovate

Balancing innovation and stability in software updates requires: 1. Prioritize Stakeholder Needs: Understand specific stakeholder needs and expectations. 2. Risk Assessment: Evaluate the impact of updates and consider potential risks. 3. Phased Rollouts: Implement gradual updates based on feedback and stability. 4. Testing and QA: Thorough testing through automated and user acceptance testing. 5. Communication: Transparently communicate changes while ensuring stability measures are in place.

Innovation over sw stability: No CIO will agree to implement an unstable SW only to say they are innovative, especially when it involves enterprise software; the stakes are often high. So where does one find a customer to try those innovative ideas. It becomes necessary that there is a balance between customer use case and the case created from innovation. Alternately one can implement innovation to existing solution - a step by step approach. There is a place for radical innovation, eg adaptation of AI tools in our daily lives - here we find that end consumer first approach works better (vs enterprise). Innovation will happen; and it is the obligation of the innovators to make best effort to minimize their product’s risks.

Navigating the delicate balance between stakeholders who value innovation over stability in software updates requires careful planning, communication, and strategic decision-making. Segment software updates into different categories based on their impact on stability and innovation. Prioritize critical stability updates to ensure the core functionality of the software remains reliable. Innovate selectively in areas that can benefit from new features or improvements.