The last remnants of a failed project
Lessons learned and thoughts after the shutdown of a 2 year project.
What does the word ‘Niftio’ mean to you?
Probably nothing… and why should it? Chances are you are not among the few thousand recurring users who used this app.
For this reason, I will explain the mentioned word: it represents the name of an online platform for presentations (like Prezi and Google Slides). If you’re thinking of giving it a go, it’s no longer possible since the administration closed all servers.
The reason I’m writing this article is not because I’m bitter (maybe I am with some aspects). Nor is it because I want to vent. Rather, it’s because I want to put in writing a short memo depicting 3 things:
- How did the project fail?
- Why did it happen?
- What’s left of it?
Also, I want something more tangible and accessible to help me remember Niftio. I will do this by aggregating material in this article and hope that the servers won’t close anytime soon on whatever blogging platform I post this.
The post-mortem
“An unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates
While the statement above has a much broader and deeper message, we can extrapolate part of its meaning to the current context.
This means that the experience of the failed project by itself is meaningless unless we stopped to reflect over the events which happened.
I already wrote some ideas about lessons learned during this project here, but at that time, the product was still in a ‘maintenance’ phase. Most of the team members have already started working on something else. It has never occurred to me at that moment that Niftio would cease to exist in less than a year.
But what changed from the time I wrote that initial article until now?
Perspective for one has shifted a great deal. Since then, a few other projects, experiences and people have moulded my views in such a manner that now I am more aware of blind-spots which eluded me before.
Ego check
For starters, arrogance has dimmed down (or at least I hope so).
It was arrogant to say:
- ‘We failed because we didn’t get the budget for that.’
- or ‘Google Slides/ Keynote are way too powerful to compete with.’
- or that ‘If only we had x and y the outcome would have been different.’
While some of these items apply, the truth of the matter is that we (the team) are primarily to blame for the whole thing.
And I don’t mean this strictly from a technical point of view even though there is no doubt there were various possible improvements available in this sector. Possibly more automated tests and implementing a continuous integration system would have helped. This is the first thought from my perspective as a tester but there are other multiple possibilities.
Confidence fading
It is our fault we lost faith in the project ourselves when it felt like we didn’t get enough support from some key players around the company.
Most of the people involved with Niftio were already working on other projects. The app was no longer the focus.
We still prioritised maintenance and fixing critical bugs over tasks from the other projects but it wasn’t enough.
In retrospect, I think the prospect of a new project became exciting, at least for me.
The attempts to convince even the people from the same building with us to use the app for their presentations became tiresome (some did, but too few).
If that was so hard to achieve, how were we going to convince the rest of the world?
Key takeaway
There is one major idea I can get out of this experience which applies to a startup: If the team doesn’t believe in the product/ concept it’s working on, it’s already a failure.
That trust doesn’t have to be directed towards the product itself. People can direct it towards others in that organisation.
Besides my revelatory conclusion, there are other lessons learned from the post-mortem which I will try to put as briefly as possible before going to the interesting part:
- Processes should not be as demonised as you see them over various discussions. They are especially useful to juniors learning how things work on a project (most of the team was at junior level when joining the team except for 3 veterans).
- On the opposite pole, people need to encourage creativity and free expression through trust (while still maintaining a set of healthy procedures and boundaries).
- Having a responsible and engaged leader figure helped a lot. As soon as that leader distanced himself from the project, the motivation and ultimately the overall velocity of development dropped.
- Questions are powerful. If you know how to ask questions and actively listen to the answers, then you will add value in any context. It will also save time in the long run and dim frustration because your direction is much more clear.
The glossary of terms
Not too long ago, while cleaning my Google Drive, I’ve stumbled upon a document which I created soon after I joined the Niftio team.
This document had captions of all the major sections of the application. Its purpose was to help new members with a faster onboarding process by offering a general overview of the app. Also, it helped the team maintain a common language when speaking about various sections throughout the app.
I will not show the entire document here, just the main parts:
1. The templates page — which was our custom made library of templates you could choose from when starting a new presentation:
2. The presentations page — which previewed all your work without having to open the editor:
3. The editor — this is where you would edit every slide, add presenter notes and animate elements:
4. The transitions page — here you could animate the transition between the slides in a 3D manner:
5. The player page — this screen aggregated comments & notes from your audience and allowed you to control the presentations via mobile by scanning a QR code:
Bonus media
Because I’m feeling generous, and grateful to the readers who made it this far through the article, I’ll share some invaluable information.
The next video will show you how to create a stunning presentation in a matter of minutes using this great tool:
It was a wonderful experience to be part of this project. It has offered me guidance and invaluable knowledge which I needed after transitioning from surveying engineering to the world of IT (testing).
Also, it gave me the opportunity to work with people much smarter than I am and learn from them.
For this, I am grateful.
