Situation

Last Updated on January 27, 2025 by Neil Murray

Table of Contents #

Update 2025-03 #

  • Hours
  • Form API hours not included in CF7 Skins
  • Form API – NM 10-30 hours per week
  • CF7 Skins – NM 0-20 hours per week
  • Teams
  • Some work on bug fixes by Sastra when necessary

Problems

  • [1] Lack of Sales
  • [2] No Growth
  • [3]
  • [4]
  • [5]

[#] Priority to fix

Update 2024-12 #

  • Hours
  • Stopped all staff working during my illness
  • Staff now working only 0-4 hours each week
  • NM working 2-4 hours per week to keep CF7 Skins operating
  • NM working 10-20 hours per week to improve CF7 Skins
  • Teams
  • Development – mostly NM with some work by Sastra when necessary
  • Testing – done by NM
  • Website – NM
  • Support – NM
  • Documentation – no new work
  • Promotion – no new work
  • UI Design – review needed before do any more work
  • Video – no work
  • Translate – no work

Problems

  • [1] Lack of Sales
  • [2] No Growth
  • [3] Promotion does not change Sales or Growth
  • [4] No new Add-ons
  • [5] No new Templates & Styles

[#] Priority to fix

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Update 2024-06 #

  • Hours
  • Staff working 60-80 hours each week
  • Most existing staff need little support
  • Existing staff helping with new staff
  • New staff need more support
  • NM working 15-20 hours per week to keep CF7 Skins team operating
  • Teams
  • Development – working very well with little guidance
  • Testing – done well with limited supervision
  • Website – done well with some supervision
  • Documentation – no new work
  • Support – done by Ajith with limited support. Updated all Canned Responses.
  • UI Design – review needed before do more work
  • Video – added videos to new YouTube channel. No new video work.
  • Translate – working on translating all Add-ons

Problems

  • [1] NM working 25-45 hours per week
  • [2] Lack of Sales
  • [3] Promotion
  • [4] Growth
  • [5] Documentation
  • [6] No new Templates & Styles
  • [7] No new Add-ons
  • [8] User feedback

[#] Priority to fix

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Update 2024-03 #

  • Key Issues
  • Form API provides major opportunities:
  • New focus on Promotion
  • New Development staff providing many more hours
  • Development mostly focused on CF7 Skins moving to stand-alone plugin
  • Hours
  • Staff working 25- 40 hours each week
  • Have recently hired more Development staff – extra 40 30 hours per week
  • Most existing staff need little support
  • Existing staff helping with new staff
  • New staff need more support
  • NM working 25-45 hours per week to keep CF7 Skins team operating
  • Teams
  • Development – Sastra works independently with little guidance
  • Testing – done well by Parth with limited supervision.
  • Website – lots of work done by Parth. NM keeps up with reviews
  • Documentation – no new work. Logic docs completed by Parth.
  • Support – done by Ajith on time with limited support
  • UI Design – review needed before do more work
  • Video – no progress
  • Translate – nothing done

Problems

  • [1] Need more Development hours
  • [1] Nothing released
  • [2] NM working 25-45 hours per week
  • [3] Lack of Sales
  • [4] Promotion
  • [5] Growth
  • [3] Still difficult keeping CF7 Skins team operating
  • [4] Plugin reviews not completed in timely manner
  • [5] Plugins not updated regularly
  • [6] No new Templates & Styles
  • [7] No new Add-ons
  • [8] User feedback

[#] Priority to fix

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Update 2023-12 #

  • Key Issues
  • Nothing released due to plugin reviews not being completed by NM
  • 2x2IC needed – 40-50 hours per week
  • Form API will greatly affect all WordPress Form plugins (including CF7) in next 3 to 5 years
  • Hours
  • Staff working 20 – 40 hours each week
  • Most existing staff are needing less support
  • Some existing staff are helping with new staff
  • New staff still need substantial support
  • NM working 10-35 hours per week to keep CF7 Skins team operating
  • Teams
  • Development – Sastra works independently with neglible guidance
  • Testing – Done well by Parth with limited supervision. Reviews by NM mostly OK
  • Documentation – no work. Logic docs urgent but delayed by NM
  • Support – done by Ajith on time with limited support by NM
  • Website – lots of work done. Review by NM mostly OK
  • UI Design – review needed before do more work
  • Video – no progress
  • Translate – nothing done
  • General – NM is generally keeping up do date in each area

NM Problems

  • [1] Nothing released
  • [2] NM working 10-35 hours per week
  • [3] Still difficult keeping CF7 Skins team operating
  • [4] Plugin reviews not completed in timely manner
  • [5] Plugins not updated regularly
  • [6] No new Templates & Styles
  • [7] No new Add-ons
  • [8] User feedback
  • [9] Promotion
  • [10] Growth

[#] Priority to fix

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Update 2023-10 #

  • Key Issues
  • 2IC could really help
  • current team requires less hours by NM
  • progress stalls if NM not keeping up do date in each area
  • nothing released due to reviews not being completed by NM
  • Hours
  • Staff working 20 – 60 hours each week
  • Sastra requires negligible support & helps other staff
  • Some other staff are needing less support
  • New staff still need substantial support
  • Some staff are helping with new staff
  • Neil working 10-30 hours per week to keep CF7 Skins team operating
  • Teams
  • Development – progessing well with little involvement from NM
  • Testing – keeping up with Sastra. Review by NM delaying completion
  • Documentation – no work. Logic docs urgent but delayed by NM
  • Design
    • Websites – lots of work done. Review but NM delays completion
    • UI Design – lots of work done but needs review before do more
  • Support – done by Ajith (but not on time) with limited support by NM

2IC Tasks

  • [1] work 20-30 hours each week
  • [2] keep CF7 Skins team operating effectively
  • [3] keep up to date in each area
  • [4] frequent regular reliable plugin releases
  • [5] plugin reviews completed in timely manner
  • [6] Testing – timely review & supervision
  • [ ] Documentation – supervise & review
  • [ ] Websites – review
  • [ ] UI Design – review
  • [ ] Support – done well & on time (by others)
  • [7] Recruit & induct new staff
  • [8] Staff – training & support (answer questions)
  • [9] Project Management
  • [ ] Planning new work
  • [ ] Allocate work
  • [ ] Maintain Bitbucket Issues
  • [ ] Record all ideas/issues/opportunities
  • [ ] Development tools
  • [ ] New Templates & Styles
  • [ ] Team sites – manage & encourage team members
  • [ ] Update – test sites & websites
  • [10] Contibuting to & learning from Gutenberg team (10% of hours)

Refer: 2IC

NM Problems

  • [1] NM not keeping up to date in each area
  • [2] NM working 10-30 hours per week
  • [5] difficult keeping CF7 Skins team operating
  • [3] nothing released
  • [4] reviews not being completed by NM
  • [8] recruit & induct new staff
  • [7] staff training & support
  • [6] Testing – review by NM delaying completion
  • [5] Documentation – no work. Logic docs urgent but delayed by NM
  • [9] Websites – review by NM delays completion
  • [10] UI Design – needs review before do more
  • [ ] Support – done by Ajith (but not on time)

[#] Priority to fix

Indie Hackers #276 SaaS Trends etc. – Apr, 2023 #

One thing I really regret is I didn’t delegate more – that I didn’t hire more senior people. I hired a lot junior people because I didn’t have money & I was always the bottleneck – managing junior people.

One thing that’s on my mind these days is the luxury I have .. because we have very senior people. So the moment you can, hire someone who’s really good, even if they’re expensive & that will allow you to 10X.

Rob Walling of TinySeed

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Update 2023-07 #

Key issues

  • No work being done on Website issues is causing real problems for customers & less downloading of CF7 Skins
  • Current team only works with significant hours by NM (though Sastra requires negligible support)
  • Free plugin usage has declined to below 30,000 installs
  • Staff
  • working 30 – 60 hours each week (prior to UK visit)
  • working 25 – 50 hours each week (during UK visit)
  • Neil needs to work 20-24 hours per week to keep CF7 Skins team operating effectively
  • Documentation has 2 staff working 10 – 20 hours per week
    • customer documentation 4 – 10 hours per week
    • team documentation 0 – 10 hours per week
  • Neil working 5 hours per week to keep Doc team operating effectively
  • Testing has 2 staff working 15 -30 hours per week
  • Neil working 8 hours per week to keep Test team operating effectively
  • Project management done as necessary but still very limited
  • Development focused exclusively on getting CF7 Skins Logic Visual ready for release

Work Hours – Neil

  • Engineering – 8 to 16 hours/week (prior to UK visit)
  • Engineering – 0 to 1 hours/week (during UK visit)
  • CF7 Skins – 12 to 24 hours/week (prior to UK visit)
  • CF7 Skins – 1 to10 hours/week (during UK visit)

D2D Tasks

Neil looking to shed the following day to day (D2D) tasks:

  • Manage Testing [1] – Ajith WORKING
  • Keep remote contractors working [2] – Ajith & Umair WORKING
  • Answer questions | Coordination between staff [3] – Ajith & Umair WORKING
  • Test plugin updates [4a] – Ajith STARTED
  • Release plugin updates [4b] – 2IC?
  • Review & test commits [5] – Ajith WORKING
  • Allocate new work | Planning [6] – 2IC?
  • Review Docs [7] – Umair WORKING
  • Support [8] – Ajith STARTED
  • Docs. Guidelines [13] – Umair STARTED
  • Website issues [14] – Ajith ? NEW
  • Update – test sites & websites [9] – Ajith ?
  • Writing Code – Templates & Styles [10] – Ajith ?
  • Maintain Bitbucket Issues [11] – 2IC?
  • Project Management [12] – 2IC?
  • Record all ideas/issues/opportunities – Neil
  • Create UI ideas – Neil
  • Team sites – manage & encourage team members – Neil

[#] Priority to remove

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Update 2023-03 #

Key issues

  • No work currently being done on Website issues in CF7 Skins Design team
  • Growth has stagnated at 30,000 installs
  • Still haven’t got capacity to work on new ideas
  • Staff working 40 -50 hours each week
  • Previously (up to Nov 2022) we had Sastra doing less than 10 hours on Hubstaff & other staff working around 20 hours per week on Upwork
  • Sastra is working well as he always did with negligible supervision
  • Sastra is now getting work done by Eugen ready for release
  • Moving all staff to Hubstaff has simplified staff management
  • Using Hubstaff Talent has greatly improved our ability to recruit suitable people
  • We now have comprehensive job guidelines for all team roles
  • We are no longer using Upwork
  • Neil needs to work 20-24 hours per week to keep CF7 Skins team operating effectively
  • Documentation is restarted
  • 2 staff working 12 – 24 hours per week doing both customer & team documentation
    • customer documentation ? hours per week
    • team documentation ? hours per week
  • Neil working ? hours per week to keep Doc team operating effectively
  • We find we need to add significantly more team documentation each time we add staff
  • Testing has 2 staff working total of 20 -30 hours per week
  • Now testing work effectively done by Eugen & Sastra
  • But progress on testing Logic is slow
  • Neil working ? hours per week to keep Testing team operating effectively
  • Project management has restarted somewhat but very limited
  • 1 fix release done & working on releases for Multi & Logic

Work Hours

  • Engineering – 8 to 16 hours/week
  • CF7 Skins – 12 to 24 hours/week
  • Events – 0 hours/week

D2D Tasks

I’m looking to shed the following day to day (D2D) tasks:

  • Manage Testing [1] – Ajith STARTED
  • Keep remote contractors working [2] – Ajith & Umair STARTED
  • Answer questions | Coordination between staff [3] – Ajith & Umair WORKING
  • Test plugin updates [4a] – Ajith STARTED
  • Release plugin updates [4b] –
  • Review & test commits [5] – Ajith WORKING
  • Allocate new work | Planning [6] – ?
  • Review Docs [7] – Umair WORKING
  • Support – Freshdesk | Saved Replies [8] – Ajith
  • Update – test sites & websites [9] – ?
  • Writing Code – Templates & Styles [10] – ?
  • Maintain Bitbucket Issues [11] – ?
  • Project Management [12] – ?
  • Record all ideas/issues/opportunities
  • Create UI ideas
  • Team sites – manage & encourage team members
  • Docs. Guidelines – fix lack of progress – Umair
  • Gutenberg – implement

[#] Priority to remove

METHOD – measure the time I spend of these tasks & show changes over time.

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Update 2023-01 #

Neil

Looking back over the last few months I see we are not getting the results we had hoped for by adding a number of new staff. We have made some gains but much smaller than we expected & definitely not what we require.

The key issues we need to address are:

  • long term existing staff have too much to do & too little time available
  • bringing on new staff is making this situation often little better.

As a result I’m planning to review our work over the past few months & make some changes.

Work Hours #

  • Engineering – 8 to 16 16 to 24 hours/week
  • CF7 Skins – 8 to 12 hours/week
  • Events – 4 to 8 hours/week

Staff #

We need staff as follows:

  • Follow closely our system of working
  • Don’t do the same things wrong more than once
  • Don’t need to be reminded more than once
  • Don’t expect leaders to tell them how to do a task
  • Work independently with little guidance
  • Complete allocated tasks with very limited support & supervision
  • Ask when in doubt – i.e. ask when necessary
  • Cooordinate with other team members
  • Select their next tasks from long list of required work
  • Don’t ask team leaders to give them next tasks 1 by 1
  • Understand the business & act like co-business owners

See Team Guidelines – People.

D2D Tasks #

I’m looking to shed the following day to day (D2D) tasks:

  • Manage Testing [1] – Ajith
  • Keep remote contractors working [2] – Ajith
  • Answer questions | Coordination between staff [3] – Ajith
  • Test & release plugin updates [4] – ?
  • Review & test commits [5] – Ajith
  • Allocate new work | Planning [6] – ?
  • Review Docs [7] – Umair
  • Support – Freshdesk | Saved Replies [8] – Ajith
  • Update – test sites & websites [9] – Kamran
  • Writing Code – Templates & Styles [10] – ?
  • Maintain Bitbucket Issues [11] – ?
  • Project Management [12] – ?
  • Record all ideas/issues/opportunities
  • Create UI ideas
  • Team sites – manage & encourage team members
  • Docs. Guidelines – fix lack of progress – Umair
  • Gutenberg – implement

[#] Priority to remove

Idea – measure the time I spend of these tasks & show changes over time.

Ajith #

  • Available to work 30 hours per work
  • Ajith is concerned that the additional work be effective
  • Ajith has ideas about focusing on work that can be done in a single week

Observation – self

I tried working two ways

  • Fixed hours and working on tasks as it comes
  • Working on a number of tasks basis.

If I am allotted 1 hour to do a task and I am doing it, usually it takes more than or equal to one hour. But If I try to do it on a planned basis, like planning a week’s tasks and allowing time for each task which is according to the task without thinking about the limit, it comes half of the time and usually completed in the expected time frame.

Also in most complicated cases, like documentation where we need to think, I usually find it very productive to think without a computer. It took only very less time compared to thinking with a computer. I use pen and paper to figure out the main points and write by developing them, which uses very less time-consuming considering directly typing to the computer.

I found that for me having planned tasks for a week and limited time for day-to-day tasks(also defined) with a weekend review works best.

The case may differ when it comes to testing urgent features/bugs.

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Update 2022-10 #

Ajith

  • Ajith’s hours are limited to work he can do effectively without feedback and/or detailed support from others
  • Ajith needs to advise NM when has stopped work an any issue allocated to him because he needs feedback and/or detailed support before continuing
  • Any interruption of Sastra’s very limited working hours to answer Ajith questions or comments brings significant lost effective work by Sastra
  • Some tasks that Ajith has done frequently before, are done well with limited support from NM
    • Testing via screenshots of issues & releases
    • Manual Testing documentation
  • For work that Ajith does not understand what to do, it can take 1 hour of support from NM to get Ajith to do 2 – 4 hours of effective work (this is not viable)
  • We need to get Ajith to successfully complete more complex testing tasks that require independent thinking with very limited training
  • Ajith would like to be involved in some suitable development in addition to manual testing but his current performance on more complex testing tasks indicates he is not ready to do this at this stage
  • Ajith needs & wants training to improve his performance on more complex testing tasks that require independent thinking
  • We can give Ajith some suitable development tasks when he shows he can consistently complete complex testing tasks with very limited support

Extra Developer – Senior WordPress Plugin Developer

  • For the right developer, CF7 Skins could be a great opportunity
  • Many of the very successful WP plugins had another developer join the team early on who become 2IC
  • Sastra has in practice not taken on most of the Senior WordPress Plugin Developer role we discussed in 2017 due to his very limited working hours
  • We would go much better with a 2IC that could consistently give Eugen the info he needs to keep working
    • Sastra just does not work enough hours to do this
    • Neil does not have time ( & often suitable skills ) to do this consistently
  • Recruit WordPress Plugin Developers & look for one to move to Senior then 2IC

New Writer

  • PS work is not suitable for release without NM review
  • NM does not have time available to review PS work

Video Editor

  • CM takes far too long to get videos completed & released
  • We have not tested if having more videos increases CF7 Skins awareness & downloads

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Original 2022-07 #

Think & act like a new owner, with plenty of money but limited time, who has just bought a plugin that extends CF7 with 30,000+ active installs.

Key issues

  • Sastra is not available enough to meet the development requirements of our plugins
  • Sastra can do maintenance tasks only

Lack of development time

  • our rate of development has been very slow for many years
  • we have a large number of ideas that could be implemented if we had a suitable team available to work on these ideas
  • we’ve never tested the difference these ideas could make because our implementation is failing

Maintenance mode is a viable option

  • we can put our CF7 Skins plugins in maintenance for long periods of time with no ongoing damage
  • Google Analytics & downloads show very little change ever
  • it is hard to move downloads either up or down

Not utilizing Eugen’s skills

  • Eugen is a major asset – he can do large amounts of React development in little time
  • But we have ongoing trouble keeping up with him
  • We are not able to provide suitable designs in timely fashion
  • We don’t test his work quickly & advise what he needs to do to next

We have 30,000+ active installs

  • 30,000+ active installs is a significant asset
  • very few WordPress plugins get to 30,000+ active installs
  • we have successfully piggy-backed CF7’s ongoing success
  • but we need to get to 100,000+ active installs for it to be a sustainable long term business
  • another business, with the right team available, might relatively quickly build from 30,000+ to 100,000+ active installs by investing time in developing & promoting CF7 Skins

Gutenberg brings opportunities

  • NM’s ideas focus on taking CF7 into Gutenberg era via a React drag & drop interface
    • CF7 Skins Logic in Visual
    • CF7 Skins Block in Gutenberg Editor
  • Takayuki is extremely unlikely to make this transition
  • CF7 Skins could capture this opportunity by creating a good React drag & drop interface for CF7
  • the change to Gutenberg in WordPress is happening – but only slowly

Gutenberg will change the WordPress form plugin market

  • as Gutenberg takes over in WordPress, the WordPress form plugin market will likely become dominated by form plugins that work like the rest of the Gutenberg interface
  • all of the current WordPress form plugins will need to be completely re-written to work seamlessly with the Gutenberg interface
  • we don’t yet know what these dramatically changed form building interfaces will look like
  • the first one to do this well will likely be copied by others

We need to change our ways

  • First 6 months of this year did not work
  • Current team only works at all with significant hours by NM
  • We got nothing significant released
  • But we did get translations done quickly & easily

NM limitations

  • NM does not want to be heavily involved in D2D of CF7 Skins
  • NM does not have time available & skills needed to keep Eugen working
  • NM can easily make the money needed to fund development for next 6 months by doing more engineering

Team Problems

  • Our implementation is failing
  • Current team only works at all with significant hours by NM (though Sastra requires negligible support)
  • Team does not give Eugen the info he needs to keep working

Change options

  • we might do much better with skilled 2IC leading development
  • try to hire people with skill to self-manage their area

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Further reading: