Thoughts on the current SE2 development phase

I have been working intensively on the mockup we decided to use to get a grasp into the project for the past two weeks, when I got back from vacation. It's going forward, but the most pressing feeling I have is that I am working too much by myself, thus bringing a strange resemblance with the previous period I had on SE2, when I was the only one on the project actively working, talking to Ioan for feedback. This time there's Joy involved and while she's still bringing a very good contribution with specs and the larger picture of organizing the project as a project manager, but I feel again that we're lacking more people on the active development side to start make things happen and work together.

I feel that we have more people "orbiting" the project this time and a bigger management commitment, and that the thing that's lacking now to jump start the project is a clear picture of the medium term goal. (in my head at least) it's somewhere between getting it functional for some tests we want to make, doing some usability test with selected users to double check on the workflows and gathering some feedback internally from people involved in projects that will be plugged in as modules. If we decide to focus on one of these goals, we'll see the need to start working together on interconnected modules. If we decide to start doing tests on the listing system to see how it scales, then we need to get the database in place, feed it with some items and listing criteria and manage those on a test account on Amazon, the only venue we can support out of the box. If we want to do usability tests, then we want to put more research into what our customer target is, what is their current business position, what are their problems, what are they looking for, from what background, technical and business-wise they come from, establish some official contacts with such few companies/users and start working with them on what we agree it's more important, balancing our need for system testing with their immediate business needs.

It's not my role to set directions for how the project moves forward and what our goals are, the thing I want to participate the most with in this project is designing it for usability and pleasure of interaction and use. I tried however focusing more on defining the project structure and connecting it to the market business needs while I was in London and most likely because of that I see certain paths to follow to get to a desired end result. It's sort of a thing I want to achieve personally that's not necessarily connected to a business project, but more as a tendency to see clear into a structure and get its pieces in order so they work together as I want them to. For this particular project I want it to succeed so I'm sharing the bits of information that I think can make a difference with helping us be more efficient.

To get back to the main idea as I've sort of mixed it with other crazy stuff from my head, I think that the thing that would give the project a push forward (and a boost in my personal feeling of usefulness) is to define a clear goal that we want to reach as a team, and start a common work towards putting pieces together to get there.