Why this forum SCARES me!

    FIRST, let me say, I think it is a great thing that kemper is listening to their users. So far, the engineering, support, community and everything is a perfect 10 in my book. So please take this post lightly :)



    As a software developer, who relies heavily on user requests as part of my daily job, the concept of this forum scares me! It is great that kemper created a platform for user requests and even integrates some of them, however, sometimes you users don't know quite what you're asking for! If the developers at kemper were to satisfy every request, the kemper would become a complete and utter mess :) The kemper right now, definitely has room for obvious upgrades, however, it is clean, lean and simple to use in its current form. A forum like this promotes what we call "feature creep", a never ending cycle of features that "must be added". There is definitely a point of diminishing returns when it comes to new features, and developers of a product must be very selective in those they choose that actually "improve" a device. Lots of times, there are many non-obvious reasons why a feature should or shouldn't be added. There are LOTS of things to consider. So, as a user, don't be utterly disappointed when requested features don't ever come to life, it doesn't mean the idea wasn't good, its usually a matter of practicality. I would always be happier with a developer who is more selective in what to include in their product than one who tries to please everyone.


    That all being said, the forum doesn't really scare me, I just wanted to post my thoughts on this subject. So far the work at kemper is superb and I know they will continue to do an awesome job moving forward.

    I think that every fully grown man© knows that not any feature can be implemented or considered necessary by a developer.
    I think that Kemper team has plain development ideas, but users suggestions can be useful to find out which features need a quicker development, and to give new ideas for the future.



    ©"Fully grown man" is a trademark of Donbranzini inc. 2012

    Interesting post Mike! You have a good point there - Jimmno put it succinctly, and here's why I think why this forum is a great idea as well:


    Great companies and products happen because they appeal to their customers.


    Big companies often have huge product management and pre-sales teams that gather specs from customers, and build products based on those inputs. The final decision to build/not build the products and features still lie in the hands of the design teams/developers that actually build the hardware or write code to achieve these ends.


    I think that this is a brilliant idea in getting ideas from the customers (i.e. US), and making the product even better. This is crowd-sourcing at it's finest IMO. Im sure Kemper has a 'vision' for it's products (I am a virus user, and I love it) - and as a result - ideas that dont match the road-map will not be implemented, where as ideas that are - will be added to the product.


    Yes, there's a bit of noise as part of this forum (or any forum for that matter) - but filter out that noise - and there are a lot of ideas here on this forum.


    Just my 5c (accounting for inflation) ;).

    Yes, you are right!


    I hope that not ALL features will go into the KPA.


    This is more some kind of brainstorming for CK and the Kemper team - they will surely add what is missing and fit's into the philosophy - and not all the crap ;)

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    There is no way for all the features to be added, however the Kemper isn't complete yet either, so it's pretty far from feature creep status. People shouldn't be stopped from requesting what they want or what is important to them just because for someone else it's all that they will ever need already either, that's stifling and leads to stagnation.


    Over time it's up to CK and the Kemper team to decide how best to implement features and what features to add, often their solutions will obsolete many requests which are going to be for workarounds and will be limited by the users own technical understanding of the situation. So there's no need to be overwhelmed by the requests.


    I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that if a developer is intimidated by requests then they wouldn't have a forum for it. I'm pretty sure CK has got this one in hand, and actively wants people to feel free to post their requests without judgement. That's my view, also as a developer.

    Working for a large industry doing software & hardware development, I would say that the first step to developing a successful product is to know about the needs of the customer.


    Knowing about the needs however, does not mean to satisfy every customers wish, but to get a feeling, what is most important for the customers but means a comparable low development effort.


    If you sort the threads (by amount of entries or how often they have been read) you can easily see, that a foot controller and some management software for the rigs is what interests the people most. In addition reading the threads maybe there are some ideas, which are easy, smart and make sense to implement.


    Also obviously the users of this forum do not demand a personal answer for each of their wishes from KPA development.


    I think a forum of this kind is a valuable tool for any product management. It would only be scary, if those wishes are directly accepted and implemented by development without waiting for a proper concept.

    Kemper Stage

    Quote from Will_Chen

    This is called scope creep and in a traditional project model it would be the job of the project manager to reign this in and get a hold of it.


    KPA development is far from the traditional model. I would consider Kemper's approach to fall under agile development methods. Things move too fast these days for most projects to follow tradition and define a "one-and-only" set of requirements within a finite scope.


    Either way, I love that they have this forum section.