Axton, Before the meeting I shared your viewpoint of the "old RFE" process.
It was made very clear during the meeting that the "change" that happened on Jan 1 2006 to the RFE process was NOT communicated to the customer base at that time. If we had been given the presentation in February then I bet they would have had even more RFE's coming in between the announcement and now. (Which might have made it a steeper up hill climb to get all the processing in place.) Like resubmitting older RFE's so that they can be evaluated instead of "waiting" until the backlog is processed. :) It was also stated during the meeting that BMC is actively trying to balance customer involvement with guarding against "unpolished engineering notes reaching customers directly" (paraphrased). As normal, techie people are not generally the best at say "I get it, but no" in a way that most customers would appreciate. :) No one wants to waste their time, and no one wants to cause any more ill will around this process. It was also made clear that under some "responses" (like the infamous "as designed") from the RFE process that the story is not over. Rather such an RFE demands (from a customer service perspective) a quote from an existing manual, or a KB article explaining the reason why. Simply saying "No, you do not get it." is just not enough for the money and time that customers are devoting to BMC. The general theme during the meeting is that RFE's are a great oppertunity for BMC to "partner" with their customers, and they have done a poor job of using that resource to it's fullest today. (for various reasons) However, I am personally confident that David Easter got the message during the meeting and is now activly doing the best he can inside BMC. However, BMC will need some time to make decisions and possibly reallocate some minor resources to try to address the issues that were raised. After the meeting, I can say that am hopeful for all new RFE's that are being submitted. And if even 10% of the suggested RFE enhancements are implemented in the RFE process then the RFE future is very bright indeed. David, I know I might be asking a bit much here, but can you comment on when you might know if any, or which suggestions, might be implemented? -- Carey Matthew Black Remedy Skilled Professional (RSP) ARS = Action Request System(Remedy) Love, then teach Solution = People + Process + Tools Fast, Accurate, Cheap.... Pick two. _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at http://www.wwrug.org
