Yuneec Is Listening
- Thread starter Ty Pilot
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rdonson
Premium Pilot
PatR
Premium Pilot
My experience with engineers is that they never have any “pull” with management, unless they are part of management themselves. Even then they will not be the ones introducing ideas. Engineers just don’t initiate things as any project they are involved in will never be finished. Management generates tasks and ideas and hands them off to engineering for development. OTOH, customer service does report directly to management, which provides a good CS team tremendous opportunity to influence the path management takes.
I sent to Yuneec Europe (Germany) a few weeks ago the tracks of improvements of the product TH PLUS. They assured me that it would be sent to China. After ... it is difficult to know if everything will be taken into account, at least they are informed, ditto for the website Yuneecpilots.com and the different topics.
Happy New Year to all prosumers and the Yuneec Team for 2019
While reading this thread I have noticed that one Yuneec engineer personally told one prosumer that such and such feature is currently worked and will be released soon; it suddenly dawned on me that the best Software Development Methodology for Yuneec would be to use some AGILE methodology.
- The prosumer community can be a good source of wanted/needed features - which can fill a 'backlog' (list of desired features).
- Then Yuneec discuss within the dev team what must/should/could be done for the next iteration (firmware release).
- They announce/publish the list of features for next release (typically once monthly)
- The prosumers would know and anticipate the firmware upgrade
- Back to step 1 above and loop through iterations (firmware upgrades)
In which case they could consider the prosumer community as the source of information for the 'product owner' at Yuneec.
[Okay, I shall phone-in for the stand-up meetings, lol]
How's that for making 2019 as happy as 2018 ? (wasn't the magical H+ released in 2018)
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PatR
Premium Pilot
Good luck with Yuneec recognizing the Agile concept. I doubt they’ve even heard of six sigma.
rdonson
Premium Pilot
My experiences as an engineer for 20 years and then 20 years in IT are different. Whenever a product is to be created there are a LOT of meetings with those who want the product created, hardware and software engineers, test departments, procurement and project managers (PM). The PMs and meetings continue as long at the product is still being sold, supported and revised. I've been involved in many, many weekly meetings with PMs and the rest of the development and support teams. No product is released without a list of known bugs that are prioritized. That's why shortly after release of just about all products you will see firmware updates. Firmware updates typically continue for a year or so until the feedback from customers suggests there are no more critical bugs. Requests for new features are also part of the cycle.
Perhaps small companies don't follow this model but most large companies I'm aware of do.
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I think that's true of most big companies in the US. I don't think the engineers in Yuneec US are consulted on for design by the China Yuneec company. I think that's what most of us are frustrated over as we would like to think that our concerns are being heard and acted upon. I feel they are motivated by sales and lastly by our concerns.
As always I could be looking at this a little bit cynically!
rdonson
Premium Pilot
I have no knowledge of Yuneec the company and their organization and I'm not going to speculate on how they operate.
PatR
Premium Pilot
Rdonson,
I feel most creative companies focus on new developments that would generate the most revenue for their chosen business model. As one that has also sat through many products development meetings I’m aware the engineers aren’t included in development meetings until after the primary customers or upper management establishes a desire to create something new. From that point PM’s are selected who in turn select the people, often engineers, that will be tasked with developmental research.
My point being that develop decision making is “top down” in execution. Nothing happens until someone at the top of the management chain decides new development is warranted. I do know that Chinese businesses defer all decision making to the highest levels. That concept has been beaten into them for centuries, and exacerbated by their political system. Lower levels are not permitted to “think outside the box”. Unfortunately, this is becoming more and more common with many of our own corporations. People are heavily encouraged to “stay in their lane” or risk some form of punitive action.
I feel most creative companies focus on new developments that would generate the most revenue for their chosen business model. As one that has also sat through many products development meetings I’m aware the engineers aren’t included in development meetings until after the primary customers or upper management establishes a desire to create something new. From that point PM’s are selected who in turn select the people, often engineers, that will be tasked with developmental research.
My point being that develop decision making is “top down” in execution. Nothing happens until someone at the top of the management chain decides new development is warranted. I do know that Chinese businesses defer all decision making to the highest levels. That concept has been beaten into them for centuries, and exacerbated by their political system. Lower levels are not permitted to “think outside the box”. Unfortunately, this is becoming more and more common with many of our own corporations. People are heavily encouraged to “stay in their lane” or risk some form of punitive action.
rdonson
Premium Pilot
Well said, Pat. I have no experience with Chinese companies. I'm limited to the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, etc.
PatR
Premium Pilot
There’s a lot of political, and intelligence aspects behind Chinese export businesses that I won’t go into here but a common theme across all of them is minimal investment, rapid development, maximum ROI in foreign currency in the shortest possible time. There’s also a get rich quick mindset.
That Yuneec has not kept up with some of the more widespread advances in drone and camera tech it indicates, at least to me, they are incapable of doing so due to lack of desire, financial resources, or mental talent. Every one of their most recent releases uses technology they had already used in one form or another with previous platforms. The only “break through” was incorporation of PX4, with little to no benefit.
That Yuneec has not kept up with some of the more widespread advances in drone and camera tech it indicates, at least to me, they are incapable of doing so due to lack of desire, financial resources, or mental talent. Every one of their most recent releases uses technology they had already used in one form or another with previous platforms. The only “break through” was incorporation of PX4, with little to no benefit.
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I don’t want to make another thread. Since the title of this thread is fitting, and I apologize in advance for hijacking your post @Ty Pilot.
Is Yuneec listening? Yes.. I have been quite lately on here and I have told only a handful. I will be part of of creating content in social media, specially on INSTAGRAM, as I was once a creative influencer in photography and retouching.
Is Yuneec listening? Yes.. I have been quite lately on here and I have told only a handful. I will be part of of creating content in social media, specially on INSTAGRAM, as I was once a creative influencer in photography and retouching.
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Yuneec, similar to what you are doing, but I will be doing videos.
