Software and Omelets: How To Tell When They’re Done

The first dish that I learned to make for myself was an omelet.  My mother showed me the process.  She was very detail-oriented, and insistent on doing things exactly right.  She explained how to beat the eggs, how much butter to put in the pan, how long to heat that, when to add the eggs, and so on.  “It’s very important not to cook it at a high temperature”, she intoned in her this-is-very-serious voice.  As the process continues, you fold the egg mixture back on itself, and continue.  You wait until it’s still a bit runny, then turn up the heat for a minute, to brown it.  Then fold over, and you’re done.  “The big mistake people make is to cook the omelet too long”, my mother said seriously.  Don’t let it cook too long.  About this matter, my mother was right.  The big trick is not to overdo it!  Less is more, in his case.

As with omelets, so with many other things in life, and in business.  You want to determine how much is enough?  That answer isn’t always clear.  Not enough is not good, and too much of something is also not productive.  We have names for these sort of states — some polite, some not so.  If not enough energy or time has been devoted to a task or project, we might think of calling it underdone, careless, sloppy or lazy.  While we have terms for situations where it’s too much — like “you’re overdoing it”, OCD, beating a dead horse, and so on.

Similarly with field service management software.  How do you determine how much is enough?  This question, “How much software?” can be thought of in different ways.  First, there’s the question of how many software programs I should have on my computer.  In the early days of microcomputers, back in the early 1980s, one bought a computer, and perhaps loaded a word processor, such as WordStar, and a spreadsheet, such as VisiCalc, or Lotus 1-2-3, on the machine.  Don’t forget a couple of games, which many users loaded on their machines.  Flight Simulator became a big seller, and a means of testing whether your PC was really IBM-compatible.

Nowadays, when you purchase a new computer, it frequently comes loaded with dozens of programs, to help get you started, to whet your appetite.  For many users, including myself, the task is to be economical with the applications.  When I get started with a new computer, my Windows desktop has just a few shortcut icons — one pointing to Windows Explorer, one to Microsoft Word, one to my E-mail program, one to my favorite ‘net browser and one pointing to our specialized version of  our own software, Scheduling Manager Gemini, which has been specially customized for our in-house use.  These days, I couldn’t live without it.  I love the way the Caller ID Feature causes the caller’s number and name to pop up as soon as the phone rings.  If they’re a present customer (or lead), their ID appears on the screen, and I can jump immediately to their record by clicking the Goto button.  Once their record is on my monitor,  I can immediately see all sorts of information about the person — when they first called, where in the world they are located, whether they are a lead or customer, and if they are a customer, what software they purchased, the purchase date, when they last upgraded, who they last spoke to, what estimates or order forms they’ve been sent, their account balance, where they heard of us, and more.  I can also click a button and see what search engine they used to find us on the web, if they found us ion the internet.  Also, the search string they entered, and the first page on our web site they visited.

With our Caller ID Feature, I can instantly see who’s calling directly on my screen.  I can also tell who else is presently on a phone call, and who they’re talking to, how long they’ve been talking and so on.  This can be very helpful in monitoring performance of salespersons, support personnel, and others in the organization.  A log is kept of all phone calls, emails in and out, and we can readily see a complete history of all interactions with each lead or customer at the click of a mouse.

We also use the software for scheduling appointments, of course, and for creating and sending reminders to one another.  In addition. we use the software for creating estimates, which can be converted to PDFs, and e-mailed directly form the Scheduling Manager software.  If an estimate is accepted, we convert it to an order form with a click, and this is emailed to the customer.  Once accepted, the credit card is billed from within the software, and the money is on its way to our bank account.  Look, Ma, no hands!

Then, of course, it wouldn’t be very intelligent of us if we didn’t use our own software to gain intelligence about our organization.  So we have sales reports, reports of new leads — showing all sorts of information about each one — and much more.  We test out new ideas and features in our own business environment.  We’re a service business ourselves, after all.  We don’t see ourselves as simply providing a product to users, and then being done with it.  We are aware that the software is a concrete expression of management and organizational methods, which can be methodically applied to service businesses to improve their functionality, thus making them more efficient and more profitable.  We test out ideas in our environment, and after they’ve proven themselves, we share them with the users of our service business software, the Scheduling Manager Gemini.

This software is not a static thing.  We are frequently looking at it to find new ways to improve our organization, in one way or another.  This task is not hard, in general.  Often the need for a new feature presents itself as something obvious.  Whether it’s easy or difficult to implement the desired changes is not always immediately obvious.  We get together in technical meetings and discuss how to implement the changes we need, and decide on a schedule for implementation.  Recently, one member of our technical team suggested that we get the software to make coffee in the morning, keeping in mind the complex requirements of each of the employees’ taste in coffee — this one wants a cappuccino, that one an espresso, the next one a frappucino with low-fat milk, etc., etc.  No, not really!  That was a joke!  But it’s by entertaining myriads of ideas that we come up with practical ways to implement complex procedural tasks in the software, in a way that’s simple for the users to understand, but powerful for them to use.

Right now, one thing we’re working on is tighter, smoother integration with our web site —  so you can get the data that a user fills in on the web site immediately transferred to the software.  This enables us to give more immediate attention to people inquiring about or products and services.  It also saves the time and hassle of having to transcribe information from the web site to the Scheduling Manager software.

So, how do we decide how much software is enough?  How do we decide that the software is now complete?  I recall, back in the 1980s, when I was doing a lot of the programming for our series of “Manager” programs for a variety of service businesses — The Cleaning Manager, The Pest Control Manager, The Guard Service Manager, The Lawn Care Manager, The Home Health Care Service Manager — how I felt that the software was now complete.  We measured this against the requests we got from new users.  In the early days, we often got requests for features in the software we didn’t have.  But after several years, we had lots and lots of features, and very rarely got a request for something we didn’t have.  Of course, the world of computing was simpler in those days — before the age of the internet, Windows, mobile computing, and so on.  We now have multi-functional job scheduling and employee scheduling software for over 50 industries.  We continue to provide specialized versions of our software to businesses in new industry segments regularly, as we get requests.

Omelets are prepared with a light touch — don’t cook it too long!  Software is engineered over time, in response to the needs of users in the industries we cater to.  Much thought, engineering skills, attention to quality control, and user-interface design goes into the product that is supplied to the end-user.  But we’re never done in thinking about what can be improved, listening to current users and their suggestions, discussing all this amongst our team, and implementing new features in the software.  We invite our readers to share with us their stories and suggestions about what they’d like to see in the next software revision.