Recently, we welcomed James Carmody, a software specialist, into our team. James leads the Product segment of our business and is already kicking goals.
Introducing our first product blog post
I'm excited to have the opportunity to engage with our customers about our product vision, strategy and process behind MaiaGrazing. We'll cover a variety of topics each month - highlighting specific product features, providing transparency on what's coming up on our product roadmap, and inviting my fellow team mates, customers, and product collaborators to share their MaiaGrazing stories.Firstly, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm James Carmody, Product & Engineering Manager here at MaiaGrazing. I've only recently joined the team, and am incredibly excited by our talented team and the opportunity to build on what we've achieved so far. Just like the rest of us here, I’m committed to make a real difference to increasing resiliency in Ag by helping graziers and ranchers manage their land and businesses more efficiently.
A Product Vision for MaiaGrazing: why are we here?
I'm sure some might see the word "vision" as a vague idea. And it is! But that doesn't mean it's not useful for everyone, , and particularly those who work in Product and Engineering. We use our Product Vision to help keep everyone pulling in the same direction, resolve conflicts, and make decisions - it speaks to why we are here, and what we're trying to achieve.Led by our CEO Peter Richardson, we have worked to define our Product Vision, which can be summarised as:
"We help graziers & ranchers achieve long term profitability across your land, business and people in the face of uncertainty."
We use the Product Vision to help decide what features we need to build, where to invest for the future, and how to solve immediate problems right now. While we're proud of what we've achieved over the years, we know that solving a big challenge requires ongoing dialogue and dedication – the latter of which we have in spades.
So what are we working on?
Now that we've touched on the 10,000ft view that our Product Vision provides, let's have a look at what's going on at ground level. In the next quarter (FY2022, Q2), we'll step up our investment of the future of our product. This will help build the foundations of long-term, lasting improvements to how our customers use MaiaGrazing to manage their grazing operations, planning and forecasting.In addition to our commitment to improve our technology, we are collaborating closely with our Grazing Success team to ensure that our product roadmap is aligned to how graziers respond and interact with our product. After all, our solution is a powerful combination of software + actual guidance by our respected team of professional graziers.It's worth mentioning that the features listed here on our roadmap are subject to change - this is a peek at what we are working on, but different features may be delivered at different times as we adjust our plan based on market needs.
- A brand new mobile app - beta release
I’m proud to report that we've completely rebuilt our mobile app on top of a powerful, modern app framework. Now we can release improvements and new features quicker, and make the MaiaGrazing app a more powerful tool in a grazier's pocket. We're aiming to roll out a "beta" release of the new app to customers by the end of 2021. Watch this space!
- A new product architecture
Under the hood of MaiaGrazing, we're making big infrastructural changes to support future development. The original backend architecture is reaching the limits of what we can achieve, so we're investing in a new, purpose-built framework dedicated to grazing management. Again, this will allow us to solve problems and release new features much faster in the future.
- A focus on usability
While the fruits of this effort will take a little longer to bear, we’ve observed that our product needs to make the key grazing management activities - from managing stock through to planning grazes – even easier for our customers. A renewed focus on high-quality, practical design will see us progressively roll out new screens and experiences to make your day-to-day work in MaiaGrazing delightful.
What now?
Look out for our next product blog post next month – I welcome any topic suggestions that you may have or any questions you may want to challenge the Product team with! Shoot them over to community@maiagrazing.com.
Thanks for taking the time to find out what’s happening in the Product world here at MaiaGrazing! You can find out if MaiaGrazing is the right fit for you by Booking a tour.
