As a Product Manager for Collaboration products at Micro Focus the most important thing that I can do is listen to customers and help to solve problems. I hope that you have noticed that we are listening to customers directly and implementing "Community Driven Requirements" in each release.

One of my favorite things to do to uncover requirements from the community is to visit customers on site and see how you are using Micro Focus Collaboration products. My goal is to find where we can improve our products to make them more valuable to you.

Face to face customer input is invaluable and on average I spend a couple of weeks minimum per quarter onsite with customers and at events with customers and partners. From these visits we have prioritized many new features that you are seeing in shipping and upcoming versions, validated some new ideas and identified areas where we are not on track and need to correct.

As a customer or a partner I want to visit with you and hear your needs. I am going to use this blog to try to find out more about our customer base and find customers that want to influence Product Management and collaborate with us to make each release of our products better.

While I acknowledge that I won't be able to visit directly with every respondent, this is your chance to reach out to me and say; "Hey, I would really like you to visit us and see how we use Micro Focus products and get our input on how to improve them." If that sounds like you then I am going to make a survey available to you. This survey will help me to get to know you better and by filling it out you are saying that you would like to influence product management.

As I am out traveling and visiting with customers I will make it a point to find customers that have responded to this survey and come visit with them in person.

You may be thinking, what does this involve and what type of commitment do I need to make? I am glad you had that thought, this is what I like to accomplish when visiting with customers.

Purpose of a Customer Visit

Main Goals:

• • Gather customer driven requirements for future releases

• • Allow Product Management and Engineering an opportunity to see how customers implement solutions

• • Build stronger relationships between customers and the Product Development team

• • Uncover problems that need to be solved

What a customer visit is not:

• • A technical session to resolve SR's or other technical issues

• • Dedicated Roadmap and futures session

Desired Agenda for a Customer Visit

Focus Group with Administration and Help Desk Team(s) (1 Hour)

• • Understand how GroupWise is implemented at customer location
    Gather requirements for future releases

• • Understand challenges the team faces

• • Understand existing and future projects for the team

Focus Group with end-users that use the Client, WebAccess and mobility (1 Hour)

• • Understand how users are using GroupWise

• • Gather requirements for future releases

• • Determine what works well and what needs improvement

Focus Group with Buyer/Decision making team (1 Hour)

• • Gather requirements for future releases

• • Prioritize features that matter the most

• • Understand existing and future challenges and projects for the customer

• • Discuss findings from earlier Focus Group meetings

If this is appealing to you, please fill out the survey located here. Be sure to fill out your contact information or else I wont be able to "find" you.

Thanks, and see you soon!