Genesys Cloud - Main

So, 300 ideas!  That seems a lot but what may be more helpful for us, is helping Genesys pay attention to each and every one:

Does that mean that every one of them will get put into the product – not at all!  What is shows is that they consider carefully about each idea, if it is worth developing, if they need more input, and even saying that they won't develop some. 

In submitting this plethora of ideas, I have found out some very important items that will help your idea be seen, considered, and moved forward on the development path and wanted to share them with you all.

 Number of Votes

1. Just because an idea gets hundreds of votes does not mean it will be instantly catapulted to the top of the list.  The PMs have to take many things into consideration aside from the number of people interested like can it actually be done, what other development would be required to implement the idea in the current framework of the product, the impact on other development efforts, and when best to release it in conjunction with other feature releases – you can't just release a bunch at features at once and bombard users with a slew of new things to discover and use.
2. Use Cases are more important than votes
   I see a lot of our own engineers putting in ideas and then sending out a blanket email to "please vote for my idea" so they can get the votes to be seen.  While that might get attention, in reality what is more important to Genesys is not the actual votes, but the use cases you can attach to the idea when you submit it.  They can filter for both Individual and Organization votes, so if they see and idea with 50 votes and only 2 organization votes, then they know something is fishy.  What would be even more effective than the vote request from colleagues would be to ask them to comment with more use cases and reasons that your idea is worth developing.  This gives the PM and idea of how it would be used, how passionate people are about the idea and provide more fodder for management to throw money and resources at the feature. 
3. Be Clear and Concise
   I try to consciously think about what my idea impacts and how it could be put into the product.  Sure, you could come up with some pie-in-the-sky creation that in reality would take years to come out like self-driving cars, but what Genesys would rather see are clear and concise ideas to reach that goal like cameras all around the car or adding lidar to the car.  For Genesys cloud, instead of asking for many things in one idea, split it up so developers can see the path to your idea.   Also, in the description, be clear about what you expect to see in the UI or how you expect it to work.  I will usually describe the button, what it does and how it is labeled and nothing else in the description.  In the use case, I describe why I need it or how hard it is to accomplish the same thing now. 

4. Describe your Workflow
   While you may know exactly how you get to your pain point, others may take different approaches or routes to the same information.  Be sure to describe how you get to where your feature fits into the UI or where you expect the feature to be exposed.  It could be as simple as "place a search box in the data table display page" or something more complex "we need a report that shows abandoned calls by agent" and going on to explain what information you expect to see in that view and what you are missing with the current view.  Remember that PMs and developers know their own products and not so much about other areas of Genesys Cloud, so they might need some direction where to get to what you are enthusiastic about.   

5. Don't Be Afraid To Dream
   No idea is a bad idea (well, there have been a few), but your idea my spur others to produce their own.  You may see something in another product which is really cool and should also be a cool feature in Genesys or maybe you really miss a feature you had in your previous product that is not there (not like that does not happen!).  Just let the world know even if you have no idea how to describe it clearly.  Others may catch on and comment on your idea with the correct description. 

We are all a community, and all want Genesys Cloud to grow to be the best solution out there, but it does take a village!  PMs and developers are not the epitome of product knowledge and need your insights to help them understand, so help them out by giving them your ideas today at https://genesyscloud.ideas.aha.io. 

#Unsure/Other

------------------------------
Robert Wakefield-Carl
ttec Digital
Sr. Director - Innovation Architects
Robert.WC@ttecdigital.com
https://www.ttecDigital.com
https://RobertWC.Blogspot.com
------------------------------

While I agree in principle with most of your points here, I think this betrays the frustration that still exists out there with some ideas that have actually been around longer than it would take to build a village ;)  Example here, Windows 95 only took about 2.5-3 years from design to release (okay may not have a perfect release for old Bill G) but we've got fairly standard ideas out there languishing some 6 years later.  With some of these the "use case" is pretty self explanatory.

We still have the same issues with the ideas portal that some of us raised well over a year ago in that it seems PMs aren't being notified of comments on ideas, resulting in some of us waiting many months for a response, or ideas get mistakenly put into the wrong state which seems to "stop the clock" of updates and notifications to the PM.  There's a few instances of ideas where someone has requested an admin update because the original ETA had come and gone, only to wait weeks or longer and then to be told a new ETA was potentially an additional 12 months away.  Or others where you see a request for an admin reply or response and as much as 3+ months has gone by with no communication.

Yes, in theory having colleagues add use-cases and comments to ideas is great, but we need to actually see some type of response to validate the usefulness of that.  In the same conversation we do need PMs to be open to those use cases.  Without singling anybody out, there is at least one product line where the response from the PM gave the perception that they knew better than what our clients and other partners have been saying and asking for.

When delays in roadmap ideas and requests results in actual lost opportunities and customers, this should be raising flags.

I'd personally like to see a warts and all report of aged ideas showing votes and comment count with last comment vs raised datestamp.  I can name at least one where the thread is about 80 comments long and over 200 votes that by the time it may actually be released will have been nearly 7 years :(

So, 300 ideas!  That seems a lot but what may be more helpful for us, is helping Genesys pay attention to each and every one:

Does that mean that every one of them will get put into the product – not at all!  What is shows is that they consider carefully about each idea, if it is worth developing, if they need more input, and even saying that they won't develop some. 

In submitting this plethora of ideas, I have found out some very important items that will help your idea be seen, considered, and moved forward on the development path and wanted to share them with you all.

 Number of Votes

1. Just because an idea gets hundreds of votes does not mean it will be instantly catapulted to the top of the list.  The PMs have to take many things into consideration aside from the number of people interested like can it actually be done, what other development would be required to implement the idea in the current framework of the product, the impact on other development efforts, and when best to release it in conjunction with other feature releases – you can't just release a bunch at features at once and bombard users with a slew of new things to discover and use.
2. Use Cases are more important than votes
   I see a lot of our own engineers putting in ideas and then sending out a blanket email to "please vote for my idea" so they can get the votes to be seen.  While that might get attention, in reality what is more important to Genesys is not the actual votes, but the use cases you can attach to the idea when you submit it.  They can filter for both Individual and Organization votes, so if they see and idea with 50 votes and only 2 organization votes, then they know something is fishy.  What would be even more effective than the vote request from colleagues would be to ask them to comment with more use cases and reasons that your idea is worth developing.  This gives the PM and idea of how it would be used, how passionate people are about the idea and provide more fodder for management to throw money and resources at the feature. 
3. Be Clear and Concise
   I try to consciously think about what my idea impacts and how it could be put into the product.  Sure, you could come up with some pie-in-the-sky creation that in reality would take years to come out like self-driving cars, but what Genesys would rather see are clear and concise ideas to reach that goal like cameras all around the car or adding lidar to the car.  For Genesys cloud, instead of asking for many things in one idea, split it up so developers can see the path to your idea.   Also, in the description, be clear about what you expect to see in the UI or how you expect it to work.  I will usually describe the button, what it does and how it is labeled and nothing else in the description.  In the use case, I describe why I need it or how hard it is to accomplish the same thing now. 

4. Describe your Workflow
   While you may know exactly how you get to your pain point, others may take different approaches or routes to the same information.  Be sure to describe how you get to where your feature fits into the UI or where you expect the feature to be exposed.  It could be as simple as "place a search box in the data table display page" or something more complex "we need a report that shows abandoned calls by agent" and going on to explain what information you expect to see in that view and what you are missing with the current view.  Remember that PMs and developers know their own products and not so much about other areas of Genesys Cloud, so they might need some direction where to get to what you are enthusiastic about.   

5. Don't Be Afraid To Dream
   No idea is a bad idea (well, there have been a few), but your idea my spur others to produce their own.  You may see something in another product which is really cool and should also be a cool feature in Genesys or maybe you really miss a feature you had in your previous product that is not there (not like that does not happen!).  Just let the world know even if you have no idea how to describe it clearly.  Others may catch on and comment on your idea with the correct description. 

We are all a community, and all want Genesys Cloud to grow to be the best solution out there, but it does take a village!  PMs and developers are not the epitome of product knowledge and need your insights to help them understand, so help them out by giving them your ideas today at https://genesyscloud.ideas.aha.io. 

#Unsure/Other

------------------------------
Robert Wakefield-Carl
ttec Digital
Sr. Director - Innovation Architects
Robert.WC@ttecdigital.com
https://www.ttecDigital.com
https://RobertWC.Blogspot.com
------------------------------

Agreed that features that have been out there with a LOT of votes should be highly considered, but there are so many things that can go into a simple feature - take agent welcome greetings.  Sure, just play a prompt when the agent gets a call.  But, how is it recorded and can it be uploaded or changed by a supervisor?  If stored in prompts, how would you manage the User Prompts if you had 2000 agents and all their welcome greetings mixed in with other prompts.  Where would you activate this as well - at the agent level which would be a pain or at the queue level?  What happens if agent does not have a greeting - play default or nothing?  

I appreciate the enthusiasm for a feature, but sometimes it is like re-cabling a network closet - you find your 3-hour job turns into 3 weeks. 

While I agree in principle with most of your points here, I think this betrays the frustration that still exists out there with some ideas that have actually been around longer than it would take to build a village ;)  Example here, Windows 95 only took about 2.5-3 years from design to release (okay may not have a perfect release for old Bill G) but we've got fairly standard ideas out there languishing some 6 years later.  With some of these the "use case" is pretty self explanatory.

We still have the same issues with the ideas portal that some of us raised well over a year ago in that it seems PMs aren't being notified of comments on ideas, resulting in some of us waiting many months for a response, or ideas get mistakenly put into the wrong state which seems to "stop the clock" of updates and notifications to the PM.  There's a few instances of ideas where someone has requested an admin update because the original ETA had come and gone, only to wait weeks or longer and then to be told a new ETA was potentially an additional 12 months away.  Or others where you see a request for an admin reply or response and as much as 3+ months has gone by with no communication.

Yes, in theory having colleagues add use-cases and comments to ideas is great, but we need to actually see some type of response to validate the usefulness of that.  In the same conversation we do need PMs to be open to those use cases.  Without singling anybody out, there is at least one product line where the response from the PM gave the perception that they knew better than what our clients and other partners have been saying and asking for.

When delays in roadmap ideas and requests results in actual lost opportunities and customers, this should be raising flags.

I'd personally like to see a warts and all report of aged ideas showing votes and comment count with last comment vs raised datestamp.  I can name at least one where the thread is about 80 comments long and over 200 votes that by the time it may actually be released will have been nearly 7 years :(

So, 300 ideas!  That seems a lot but what may be more helpful for us, is helping Genesys pay attention to each and every one:

Does that mean that every one of them will get put into the product – not at all!  What is shows is that they consider carefully about each idea, if it is worth developing, if they need more input, and even saying that they won't develop some. 

In submitting this plethora of ideas, I have found out some very important items that will help your idea be seen, considered, and moved forward on the development path and wanted to share them with you all.

 Number of Votes

1. Just because an idea gets hundreds of votes does not mean it will be instantly catapulted to the top of the list.  The PMs have to take many things into consideration aside from the number of people interested like can it actually be done, what other development would be required to implement the idea in the current framework of the product, the impact on other development efforts, and when best to release it in conjunction with other feature releases – you can't just release a bunch at features at once and bombard users with a slew of new things to discover and use.
2. Use Cases are more important than votes
   I see a lot of our own engineers putting in ideas and then sending out a blanket email to "please vote for my idea" so they can get the votes to be seen.  While that might get attention, in reality what is more important to Genesys is not the actual votes, but the use cases you can attach to the idea when you submit it.  They can filter for both Individual and Organization votes, so if they see and idea with 50 votes and only 2 organization votes, then they know something is fishy.  What would be even more effective than the vote request from colleagues would be to ask them to comment with more use cases and reasons that your idea is worth developing.  This gives the PM and idea of how it would be used, how passionate people are about the idea and provide more fodder for management to throw money and resources at the feature. 
3. Be Clear and Concise
   I try to consciously think about what my idea impacts and how it could be put into the product.  Sure, you could come up with some pie-in-the-sky creation that in reality would take years to come out like self-driving cars, but what Genesys would rather see are clear and concise ideas to reach that goal like cameras all around the car or adding lidar to the car.  For Genesys cloud, instead of asking for many things in one idea, split it up so developers can see the path to your idea.   Also, in the description, be clear about what you expect to see in the UI or how you expect it to work.  I will usually describe the button, what it does and how it is labeled and nothing else in the description.  In the use case, I describe why I need it or how hard it is to accomplish the same thing now. 

4. Describe your Workflow
   While you may know exactly how you get to your pain point, others may take different approaches or routes to the same information.  Be sure to describe how you get to where your feature fits into the UI or where you expect the feature to be exposed.  It could be as simple as "place a search box in the data table display page" or something more complex "we need a report that shows abandoned calls by agent" and going on to explain what information you expect to see in that view and what you are missing with the current view.  Remember that PMs and developers know their own products and not so much about other areas of Genesys Cloud, so they might need some direction where to get to what you are enthusiastic about.   

5. Don't Be Afraid To Dream
   No idea is a bad idea (well, there have been a few), but your idea my spur others to produce their own.  You may see something in another product which is really cool and should also be a cool feature in Genesys or maybe you really miss a feature you had in your previous product that is not there (not like that does not happen!).  Just let the world know even if you have no idea how to describe it clearly.  Others may catch on and comment on your idea with the correct description. 

We are all a community, and all want Genesys Cloud to grow to be the best solution out there, but it does take a village!  PMs and developers are not the epitome of product knowledge and need your insights to help them understand, so help them out by giving them your ideas today at https://genesyscloud.ideas.aha.io. 

#Unsure/Other

------------------------------
Robert Wakefield-Carl
ttec Digital
Sr. Director - Innovation Architects
Robert.WC@ttecdigital.com
https://www.ttecDigital.com
https://RobertWC.Blogspot.com
------------------------------