Idea to make Project Management 5x efficient

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hilbert
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Idea to make Project Management 5x efficient

Postby hilbert » 11 Nov 2014

Aim: This post is not about making slow PM page faster. This post is about a developing a market system that forces each client of MC to think very carefully before they make a new feature request, or vote on a new feature request.

Background & Problem: Currently, MC PM system has hundreds of new feature requests waiting for MC team to implement them. Only a handful of MC clients vote for these feature requests on the PM page. This raises questions:
1) Why most of MC clients do not vote for these feature requests? Maybe they feel their vote doesn't count. This leads to very little participation.
2) A minority of MC users are highly active (maybe 50 or so) and these guys create most of the feature requests and vote for them. I consider myself a fairly active MC user. Lets say PM page has 200 feature requests. I read through their name, say I like 50 out of 200, I open these 50 and read their description. Assume I like 30 out of 50, I go ahead and vote for those 30 feature requests. I assume other "active users" also vote on a large number of feature requests.
Above process creates huge problem. I have no way to communicate to MC management my top 5 feature requests out of the 30 that are most important to me and I would like to get implemented ASAP. Currently, there is no system to prioritize my wish list of features. This leads to:
a) voting on a large number of feature requests by active users, which leads to
b) no clear communication to MC management about the priority of features that are most important to their clients.
c) less interest in PM system by a large number of MC users

Solution of the Problem: Every user should get 10 votes only. Once a user has exhausted these 10 votes, he should not be able to vote on any other feature request. Votes get released back to the user when one of the requested feature gets implemented. Currently, the market system on MC PM is of unlimited money printing. A user can vote for 50 or 100 feature requests. This leads to inflation. Limiting the amount of votes available will make MC users think very carefully on the most important features that they want in the software. This will also help MC management get a much more relevant and focused feedback from the users on the top features users want.

Jad
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Re: Idea to make Project Management 5x efficient

Postby Jad » 12 Nov 2014

There's no doubt in my mind that the goal of MC's PM is a noble one but clearly there is a problem with its efficacy.

You asked: "Why most of MC clients do not vote for these feature requests?"

Even though your post was not about making the PM pages/system faster, I think a lot of your answer lies right there. While people might be sufficiently motivated to endure the slow PM system to add a feature request, most will probably not be willing to endure it to review all the requests and vote on them as much as the 50 or so active users that you mentioned.

I guess we have to start with deciding exactly what the problem is with the PM system (apart from its obvious slowness) and I'm unclear about what you think it is. Is it:

a. That there are too many feature requests?

b. That not enough users are voting?

c. That some users are voting for too many?

1a). I think we all agree on 'a' but as the MC team claim to.....

"... carefully consider all suggestions in our Project Management, but implement only ones that we believe fit our concept".

..... then the total number of requests submitted shouldn't really matter (apart from the fact that their large number is a major factor in the slowness of the PM system). Overall, I think that's a good thing but the original question, posed on the feeder thread to this one, questions the priority given by MC to features over the existing bugs.

1b). Apathy, lack of time are all possible explanations for 'b' but certainly the slowness of the PM system doesn't help.

1c). 'c' seems to be in a certain amount of conflict with 'b'.

i.e. We can't need more people to vote and also have too many votes right now. So I don't see any advantage in restricting the number of feature requests upon which an individual can vote. I do see some advantage (mostly for the benefit of the MC decision makers) in your suggestion of having the ability to add a priority value to a vote - 'Critical'; 'Important'; 'Nice-To-Have' etc.

I also agree that negative voting isn't a good idea. However, there is a problem in that features aren't always discussed before implementation to discern whether they would cause anyone problems. There are 'features' in the system that should not be there in their current form (if at all).

e.g. I believe it was a feature request for MC to override STOP orders and automatically change them to Market Orders under certain circumstances - even if the price has not yet traded at that STOP price. I don’t know why anyone would want that but not everyone does. It isn't what happens when trading manually so it should not be become the 'norm' in automation and should, at least, be a selectable option .

The request itself isn't an issue but the fact that it was then implemented as a mandatory default in the system - with no way to ‘opt out’ is a costly mistake and hindrance for those who didn’t request it, have no need for it, and find that this ‘feature’ regularly results in unnecessary losses. It would have been better to have been informed about its intended implementation before having to discover it via the losses it causes.

We currently have a 'What's New' section after each new release becomes available. I'd like to see a 'What's Going To Be New' list sent to each registered user once the MC team have selected the new features they intend to add in the next release. Hopefully, that would nip problems like this in the bud, save the MC team a lot of time that they won't have to spend correcting such issues later on and get more users involved in the whole PM process.
Last edited by Jad on 12 Nov 2014, edited 1 time in total.

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arnie
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Re: Idea to make Project Management 5x efficient

Postby arnie » 12 Nov 2014

The PM started as a good idea but grew in such a way that... well, lets face it, it became worthless as it is.
Let's not talk about the time it takes to load the page since that it's a known fact.

We need a second register to access to it. Every time I want to vote, I need to login using a different password than I use on the forum, although continuing using the same nick. I can't make Chrome to save PM password, it always use the forum pass when I select the nick. Very annoying.

Very confusing having reviewed and non reviewed requests together. They should be separated.

We should be able to sort requests (reviewed and non reviewed) by chart related, PLE related, QM related... so we can go directly to the area we are interested in.
If I'm interested to see what requests have been posted related to chart playback or bar types (chart related) it takes hours to read each title and see if any is related to what I'm are looking for.

I know you guys don't want us to talk about company policies and I understand that but sometimes it's hard to separate them.
It's obvious you guys have a couple of genius programming for you. Apart from MC, when I look at TradingView... it's amazing what you've been doing with it. In terms of charting, in some ways, it can be better than MC.
Why don't you "kidnap" one of your programmers for a week or so and put him working on PM alone and solve the problems once and for all?

Again, going back to the login, when we click on the BugTracker button on the forum our login should be recognized by PM page. It makes no sense have a second login.

Allow me to once again make this request for the forum.
More and more people are attaching images on the forum. Please add the option to embed the image directly in the message without having to add manually the <Img> tag. It's obvious that the majority of people it's not interested in losing their time to set the tag or don't know how to. The same for me, if the image is not embeded I rarely open it, I won't lose time opening it.

I know management have a lot of things to do but they should be more active on their forum.
Andrew and Henry are great, amazing actually in dealing with us all, but sometimes I feel that somethings should be answered by management directly (like many years ago when I requested a clock in the DOM and Andrew Kirillov bluntly said NO! :) ) I rested my case from that moment on. No point in continuing discussing it.

People request features, they are revised (whatever that means) and that's it. For months and even years not a single word about it.
I'm a very impatient man. Having to wait weeks or months for something that I requested and got some feedback about it I can deal with. Having to wait for something that I requested and the only feedback I received was revised (whatever that means) it drives me nuts.

When management and developers analyze a request and find it interesting but not possible to develop in the current stage you should not leave the request status as revised. The correct status should be postponed. At least the person that request the feature and those that vote for it get a much better feedback than the revised one.
I think it's safe to say that more then half of the revised features should have a postpone status

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JoshM
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Re: Idea to make Project Management 5x efficient

Postby JoshM » 13 Nov 2014

We need a second register to access to it. Every time I want to vote, I need to login using a different password than I use on the forum, although continuing using the same nick. I can't make Chrome to save PM password, it always use the forum pass when I select the nick. Very annoying.
The PM website sets a cookie that expires in five days, whereas the forum cookie expires in a year. That's why we almost never need to login again in the forum (unless you clean your browser history or such) but practically always with the PM website.

It's indeed somewhat annoying that the credentials for both sites are different, but if the PM cookie 'lives' longer, this would be much less of an issue.

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piranhaxp
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Re: Idea to make Project Management 5x efficient

Postby piranhaxp » 13 Nov 2014

Funny stuff.

I got hammered here many months ago when I complained about the FR voting system. It's totally easy, because it is no serious system. Me and myself and many friends, btw heavy MC users but not active in the forum anymore, gave up of voting or discussing about features.

Why so many users don't vote ? Because they don't want to get the features implemented, but there is no choice to vote against something and therefore it never will be rejected or users will never be informed MC rejected the feature request and it just stays OPEN ? If you are against something, there is no choice to say "NO" via vote. A post "I don't want it" never counts.

.... and now I see you in this discussion again. LoL .... Big time.


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