Stuart posted a very nice recap. I hope the other folks who attended will also share their impressions and takeaways as well. Here is mine.
I also attended this session and I am extremely appreciative of the attendance by Kathy's PM team - which also included natma01 (Margaret Natario), the PM for eHealth. After witnessing the crucifixion that jason_normandin twice endured during the last CA World by rooms full of partners and carrier-class customers, I was happy (and maybe a little surprised!) to see him step back in front of the firing line!!!
Unfortunately, I missed the first 5-10 minutes, but I assume that's when everyone was checking their weapons at the door. Passions were distilled into productive discussions with some very informative output. While the lack of showing by anyone from the UIM team was unfortunate, this conversation was requested of the IM team specifically, so that's not really surprising. Kathy assured us that she will be communicating all the goodies from this session openly with Ken.Adamson (Ken Adamson), her peer for the UIM team. I would enjoy the opportunity to sit in a room with all of us and the PMs from both Kathy's AND Ken's teams together since they are all creating one unified product eventually.
One thing that stuck with me the most is that Kathy vehemently dislikes "the P word" - that's P for Parity... as in feature parity... That probably explains why her team cringes at the mere mention of it and likely added it to their list of unacceptable office terminology. So, to help out with this particular affliction I would like to propose a new phrase - Deliverable Equivalence.
Deliverable Equivalence ... perhaps this more accurately describes what I believe we are all looking for in the new products. Many of CA's customers and partners (and CA themselves!) have very specific contractual deliverables that are based on existing features of the original products. What we aren't seeing clearly, or at all, is how we are going to meet our contractual obligations using either of the new products. If my contract states that I have to deliver a set of health reports to my customers by 8am every Monday morning, how do I deliver an equivalent of that same thing using the new products? This premise alone leads us to some scary doors we will have to go through: Architectural (a whole other topic), Educational, Legal, etc. For example, will I have to go through our legal department to rework contracts to reflect the new report delivery format? Scheduled health report delivery from eHealth is an easy example of this, but there are many others I heard while I was asking my own questions at the meet-the-expert stations.
This is a good place for my new car analogy... some of you may have heard it last week, so you can skip ahead...
We're all here because we all bought the "CA car" ... we've been driving around in it for years doing our thing. It goes where we need it to go. It's proven trustworthy and reliable. But now CA is making their NEW "CA car" ... it's new and improved and has lots of new blinkies that look cool and exciting! It's the way of the future! (but the new car doesn't back up or turn left) ????? That's ok though... you're going to want the new "CA car" because it's awesome! And, make no mistake, I do want it... it's really sweet! Heck, I can even deal with not taking any left turns (UPS did it!) But it's parked in the parking spot up next to my building... how am I going to get it out of the parking space so I can even drive it down the road???!!!
That's the question everyone is asking! How are we going to deliver the equivalent to what we have today in the new car?
When I get a new car, it has to do at least what my old car does. If it doesn't, then I can't get it. Also, if I do have to switch to a whole new car, it's hard to argue that this doesn't open the door to go look at all the OTHER new cars that are out there before switching.
On the positive side, the Performance Manager (formerly known as IM2.0) team is building one heck of a new car... I've followed its development... I test drove it last week... It's more like a semi truck than a car, but I have faith that it will eventually do what my old car does. And, who knows, maybe one day it will even transform into a super kick-*** autonomous robot that will lay waste to all my network and systems issues, too! (ok... now, I'm just dreaming... but who doesn't want that car!!!)
I also get Kathy's aversion to "the P word" in "feature parity" ... It implies that we are looking backwards or standing still. So, I will go with Kathy on this and I will stop clamoring for "feature parity." But, I do need to know how I will use the new tools to meet my current delivery obligations and perform my daily job function. Until CA can show us how we are going to achieve this, it's going to be difficult to move forward with the new car.
The one clear message that came from the meeting is that we can keep using our existing products. CA has departed from the messages of the past couple years and they are not going to force us to move any time soon. Both product teams (PM and UIM) are consistently saying that we can stay as long as we need until WE are ready to move. When we feel like we are ready to hop in the new car, they will be there to help us do that. I'm looking forward to it... eventually.