I believe Geoffrey Chaucer is credited with originating the English proverb, “All good things must come to an end.” Well Mr. Chaucer, you’ve captured my sentiments perfectly as we come to the end of the inaugural Jazz Plan Jam.

As I explained in my blog post a few weeks ago, the Jam was aimed at expanding our dialog with users on ideas and priorities for the future of the Jazz products. It added a social element to the mix of our usual client interactions — for an intensive two week period (May 30 to June 13), anyone could propose ideas, comment on the ideas of others, and ultimately cast their votes (like/dislike) on what matters most to them.

So how’d it go?

All walks of life joined in the Jam — developers, testers, business analysts, architects, tool administrators, and technical managers — from companies both large and small, and across Europe, Asia, and North America.

More than 400 ideas were surfaced, 1300 comments offered, and over 10,000 votes cast.

The Jam ran at the same time as our annual Innovate conference in Orlando, so there was some nice crossover from face-to-face sessions and the online Jam.

Not surprisingly, there was a lot of activity in “New product features and functional gaps” theme. Who doesn’t have a new feature they’d like to see? But also a lot of interest in themes like Easing adoption, Large scale deployment, and Lifecycle integration.

Check the Jam site to see if where your favorite idea ranked in popularity.

What’s next?

Now its our turn to dig into the data and learn from it. We’ll combine the Jam information with what we’ve learned from other client interactions as we set both near term plans and long term directions.

Please expect to see a more thoughtful summary of the Plan Jam in the in the coming weeks after we’ve had a chance to pour through your ideas. In the meantime, try out the new V4 editions of Rational Team Concert, Rational Quality Manager, and Rational Requirements Composer. We think you’ll like what you see.

And to all you Jammers out there – Thanks! It was a blast!

Carolyn Pampino
Design Factory team lead and ALM evangelist
cpampino@us.ibm.com