An overarching goal at aXcelerate has been to make our aXcelerate Student Management System the most widely accepted and loved AVETMISS compliant software solutions for RTOs…bar none! So earlier this year, we made the decision to enhance the product development process of aXcelerate to increase effectiveness and transparency. In the past, our approach to incorporating new client-request features had been reasonably adhoc and reactive.
This year we decided to take a more proactive and planned approach with the inaugural Collaborative Product Development Team Meeting (ACPDT). The aim was to establish clear criteria for the selection of new aXcelerate features to be developed, whilst creating a new forum for clients and staff to provide input to the product development process. I’m pleased to say that our first ACPDT meeting held on the 24th of March 2014 was a great success!
Our session included the following participants:
aXcelerate Clients:
Val Evans, SkillsLink Training, Port Macquarie
Robert Fenwick, RTO Consultant, Sunshine Coast
Lee Walters, RTO Manager, Accell Pty Ltd, Mapleton
Dena Jordan, University of Queensland, Gatton VEC
Lisa King, Construction Skills Training Centre, Brisbane
Sharee Knott, The Centre Community College, Wangaratta
Chris Lambert, Site Skills Training, Brisbane
Aidan Leonard, Orbus3, South Brisbane
Jared O’Brien, Premium Health, Melbourne
aXcelerate Staff:
Chris McKechnie, aXcelerate Implementer
Michael Ryan, aXcelerate Product Manager
Mark Swaffield, aXcelerate Business Development
Chris Verner, aXcelerate Business Development
Reay Mackay, aXcelerate Managing Director
I took the opportunity to provide the team with an overview of the new aXcelerate product development process and the many stakeholders involved including clients, RTO consultants, prospects, business partners, sales staff, service and support team members and developers.
One of the main focus areas for the ACPDT was to review the feedback and data we received from our recent product development survey. Our March survey produced some really valuable feedback and we thank all who took the time to complete this survey. The data was analysed and assessed by the ACPDT panel and lead to a refined short list of prioritised product development features.
The ACPDT also provided me with the opportunity introduce some new aXcelerate features that are currently in development, including the release of our Moodle LMS integration, the new Learner Portal, National Workforce Development Fund (NWDF) reporting, integration with the Cloud Assess app and a new Student ID card feature.
Key group discussion points centred around the development of a new mobile app, tracking of professional development and currency of trainers, development of the reporting framework to enable greater flexibility and additional assessment tools.
Having the group interaction generated some great ideas which were small but significant enhancements on an already important product development area. Having these ideas so early in the product development life cycle, makes it much easier, and therefore less costly, to incorporate into our feature development plan.
We plan to roll out the ACPDT meetings throughout the remainder of this year and beyond, visiting major capital cities including Sydney, Perth and Melbourne. This will enable us to engage with our clients right across Australia and capture more of your little gems ideas to make aXcelerate the best in the market.
Regards,
Reay Mackay
Managing Director