All that matters is what you ship.
From the planning stage all the way through to consumer feedback and iteration, SimpSocial is proud of the products we deliver.
When I initially started creating digital products, I wanted to get the design to the engineering team, where it would be implemented. I would give it to the engineers to work on, and by the time they began to code, I would have moved on to concentrate on the next project.
This article is the seventh in a series addressing the guiding concepts behind our products. The phrase “What you ship is what matters” is a part of our engineering tenet, which Eugenia explains in this section.
I quickly came to the conclusion that I was passing up the chance to confirm that the product I designed was truly being distributed and, more critically, whether the solution genuinely resolved the issue for our customer. I was passing up the chance to respond to important queries: Does the solution effectively address the issue raised by the client? Is it beneficial? Does it affect the business outcomes of the company in any way?
“The journey does not end with the launch of a solution.”
To ensure the customer received the best possible solution and to keep learning and honing my design skills, I wanted to take the initiative and own what I was shipping. I rapidly understood that the journey begins even before a solution is launched.
Taking responsibility for what we ship
When we at SimpSocial say, “What you ship is what matters,” we are essentially emphasizing that our deliverable is the final product or feature that is used by our customers—what ends up in their hands. Customers pay for solutions that address their problems, not for design files.
When creating a solution, it’s important to think beyond the design’s ideal states and consider how the product will really be used by the consumer. We collaborate closely with product managers to develop shared knowledge of the issue that needs to be solved; we have scoping calls together and play a significant role in the delivery of solutions.
“At every stage of the production process, we collaborate with the team rather than just handing the engineers our designs,”
At every level of the production process, we collaborate with the team rather than merely handing the engineers our designs. We continually work together, exchanging ideas, getting their input, making trade-offs, clearing up any ambiguity, and iterating as required. There are no dramatic changes or unexpected revelations.
After they are shipped, our solutions remain our property.
But shipping is only the start. As dealers, we also have a stake in the outcome of our work. Does it resolve the issue for the customers? Are we finished, however, we define it? What doesn’t work if not that? Why is that crucial? How can this be fixed?
When we start to ship, we may begin to determine whether we need to change or improve the solution. Customers using our solutions and letting us know what works and what doesn’t is something we love to see. Prioritizing the feedback is done after analyzing the data and speaking with clients. Thus, the iterative loop gets started.
Recognizing post-launch issues
I was a member of a team that developed a means of syncing business data between SimpSocial and Salesforce back in 2020. However, after deploying the fix, we saw there wasn’t much sync activity. Why was this taking place? We were interested in discovering the causes of the low sync activity. Was the setup to blame? Was there a problem with the data? We were unable to implement a single modification that would benefit all of our clients due to the intricacy of the issue.
We chose to proceed with a number of little tests. One of these was a straightforward design solution that had initially eluded the team: it simply made the sync activity data available to the client, enabling them to troubleshoot their own configuration.
“By taking responsibility for the issue, we were able to improve the solution for our customers little by little.”
We observed an improvement of 10–15 percentage points after putting these experiments into practice. Although we still had work to do, by taking ownership of the issue, we were able to improve the solution for our clients little by little.
Since everyone who contributes to a solution, not just the final team, is accountable for its quality, dealers take ownership of the products they create and ship. Even when we collaborate with others, we are still responsible for it. We strive for quality and sweat the small print. Additionally, as a team, we are proud of the work that we deliver to our clients both before and after launch.
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