angelatc
11-19-2012, 09:38 AM
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/built-to-win-deep-inside-obamas-campaign-tech/
This is almost too technical for me to grok, but some of you will get this. The person that posted this on my Facebook page runs the local GOP, and she moaned about "when will we ever have fair elections?"
OK - all together now <bangs head> ...
Also, from the comments, ... very telling. The author was asked to speculate about the failure of the Romney system:
Without knowing a lot and I had to guess by probabilities it probably failed more than anything else due to bad communication and poor planning, like anything else in the world http://arstechnica.com/civis/images/smilies/smile.png The project probably didn't have enough people dedicated to it, not so much for engineering, but to shepherd the project to the finish line and keep everyone talking to each other.
They also didn't seem to listen to the people who would be using it, or at least listened to them in the wrong way. One of the coolest things about Dashboard is that we soft-launched that thing in a pretty raw state to volunteers way back in November of 2011 and let it grow organically as they had problems using it.
We'd bring in team leaders and field organizers from the field who were going to use this thing and they'd let us have it about what was annoying them or what they absolutely needed, we scrutinized all the little custom tools and crazy spreadsheets they'd made over the past four years to get their jobs done.
We cut out big chunks of functionality that we thought people would want and rebuilt or built new functionality that became obvious one people began using the tool in earnest for real-life stuff. On the whole I'd say Dashboard probably went through 4-5 distinct reorganizations in terms of UI, holistic functionality (what was in Dashboard and more importantly what was *not* in Dashboard). This was all possible due to some amazing product people in Chris Ganse, Jason Kunesh, Scout Addis, and Mark Trammell (its hard to stop naming people here—everyone did so much!)
The Dashboard team had a mantra of shipping something, anything, as early as possible. Although it was really rough, I think in the end it benefitted us by getting that feedback and helping guide us in the most effective direction. The alternative was a whole team putting their heads down for cranking for 6 more months until the summer and launching the product with a lot of junk and baggage that no one wanted.
That has to happen. I'm not a big fan of bottom up management, but the people at the top can't be dictators, either. The bolded lines are what we needed - two way communication with real leadership.
2016. Let's get started.
This is almost too technical for me to grok, but some of you will get this. The person that posted this on my Facebook page runs the local GOP, and she moaned about "when will we ever have fair elections?"
OK - all together now <bangs head> ...
Also, from the comments, ... very telling. The author was asked to speculate about the failure of the Romney system:
Without knowing a lot and I had to guess by probabilities it probably failed more than anything else due to bad communication and poor planning, like anything else in the world http://arstechnica.com/civis/images/smilies/smile.png The project probably didn't have enough people dedicated to it, not so much for engineering, but to shepherd the project to the finish line and keep everyone talking to each other.
They also didn't seem to listen to the people who would be using it, or at least listened to them in the wrong way. One of the coolest things about Dashboard is that we soft-launched that thing in a pretty raw state to volunteers way back in November of 2011 and let it grow organically as they had problems using it.
We'd bring in team leaders and field organizers from the field who were going to use this thing and they'd let us have it about what was annoying them or what they absolutely needed, we scrutinized all the little custom tools and crazy spreadsheets they'd made over the past four years to get their jobs done.
We cut out big chunks of functionality that we thought people would want and rebuilt or built new functionality that became obvious one people began using the tool in earnest for real-life stuff. On the whole I'd say Dashboard probably went through 4-5 distinct reorganizations in terms of UI, holistic functionality (what was in Dashboard and more importantly what was *not* in Dashboard). This was all possible due to some amazing product people in Chris Ganse, Jason Kunesh, Scout Addis, and Mark Trammell (its hard to stop naming people here—everyone did so much!)
The Dashboard team had a mantra of shipping something, anything, as early as possible. Although it was really rough, I think in the end it benefitted us by getting that feedback and helping guide us in the most effective direction. The alternative was a whole team putting their heads down for cranking for 6 more months until the summer and launching the product with a lot of junk and baggage that no one wanted.
That has to happen. I'm not a big fan of bottom up management, but the people at the top can't be dictators, either. The bolded lines are what we needed - two way communication with real leadership.
2016. Let's get started.