At the beginning of the year, we started to adopt a new way of planning the product roadmap. We’re now using an industry-standard planning methodology called SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) with the aim of giving us more confidence in our roadmap plans, and to ensure a more joined-up approach across the whole company.  

So far we’ve run two SAFe planning processes, in January and April, each of which set out roadmap plans for the following period of 6 sprints / 12 weeks (called a “Program Increment”). The planning process reserves contingency for late-breaking changes, and to allow us to respond to customer issues as and when needed.

The April planning process set out plans to continue work to address some of the long-standing technical issues that have built up over time. For example, all software runs on other technologies (such as database platforms), and this brings a requirement to stay up-to-date as these technologies themselves evolve (and the companies providing them reduce the level of support they give to older versions).

In addition, there are a number of areas where the roadmap work will be more directly visible to our customers and users: work on the e-Val “Search” capability, on Further Funding outcomes, and on the accessibility and look and feel of the platform.  

For further details, see our regular release notes here.

For further details on the Roadmap, or on how you can help us improve Researchfish, feel free to contact our Product Manager at colin.millerchip@interfolio.com