Technical Committees-Your Voice to PTC Product Development

By Frank H. Strieffler, Director of Technical Committees

Have you ever had a great idea for new functionality in a PTC product? Or, have you ever wanted to use the software a certain way, but found that the tool did not support your use case? Ever wonder how you can drive these improvements in PTC software?

The PTC/USER Technical Committees (TCs) are one of the best ways to do this! The TCs meet regularly with PTC Product Development, both virtually and in person. Among the many ways the TCs influence product direction are:

• Authoring of white papers to describe software use cases.
• Review of the technical specifications written by Product Development.
• Review of pre-released versions of new code.

Areas Covered

The TCs are generally aligned with PTC software modules. For example, Pro/ENGINEER Technical Committees include Core Modeling, Drafting, and similar groups. Arbortext has Dynamic Link Manager and Publishing Engine, among others. A complete list of committees is available at members.ptcuser.org/Resource.phx/committee/tc.htx.

Get Involved

There are three ways that you can become involved in a PTC/USER Technical Committee.

1. Participate directly. For information about joining a technical committee, please contact me or the chair of the particular TC that interests you. Note that each committee is limited in size in order to keep their operations manageable. As a result, some have room to add new members immediately, while others are at capacity and have waiting lists.

2. Join a TC review committee. If a TC has reached its maximum number of participants, you can still play an active role by joining its review committee. Among other opportunities, this type of participation gives you the chance to read and comment on white papers before they are released.

3. Talk to a TC member. Even if you cannot participate in either of the first two ways, you can still take advantage of the TCs to voice your ideas or concerns. If you have a use case or other suggestion, please contact a TC chair, a committee member, or me. We would be happy to take your input back to the appropriate TC.

TC Member Responsibilities

While participating in a TC has many rewards, membership also carries a set of responsibilities.

TC members and their companies must sign nondisclosure agreements with PTC. This allows PTC to provide detailed information on future software functionality that is not available to the general public.

TC members are expected to participate in both in-person and virtual meetings. In general, the committees meet face-to-face twice a year. In January, we meet at PTC headquarters in Needham, Massachusetts. In June, the meeting is held either right before or right after the PTC/USER World Event. In between, TCs conduct periodic meetings via teleconference and the Internet.

Members are also expected to contribute to TC deliverables, such as white papers.

TC Meeting Highlights

The Technical Committees recently met following the PTC/USER World Event 2006 in Dallas, Texas. To give you a better idea of how the TCs work and the value they provide, here are summaries of just two of the 16 sessions held in June.

Sheetmetal. The Sheetmetal TC discussed Wildfire 3 testing and implementation results, and functionality to be implemented in Wildfire 4. A Technical Support Manager presented changes that PTC is making, which led to a discussion about the problems that people and companies are having with Technical Support in general.

The TC also had an open discussion with PTC managers about the issues and concerns that we as users are facing with PTC products.

The Sheetmetal TC welcomed a new member to the group, and said goodbye to the former product manager, Gilles Combette, as he moves on to another position at PTC.

Usability and Training. During the roundtable discussion, members described the various training approaches used by the companies represented on the TC. Gordon Klein, PTC product manager for Pro/FICIENCY, gathered input from the TC regarding the benefits and challenges of the software's methodology.

The TC formed focus groups to concentrate on training, ModelCHECK, adoption aids, and usability. As a whole, the committee will work to identify and prioritize projects that provide the biggest benefit to PTC users in these specific focus areas.

Making Your Voice Heard

The PTC/USER Technical Committees are working for you, making sure that PTC hears the voice of the customer. If you have any questions about the TCs, please feel free to contact me at frank@ptcuser.org.

Frank H. Strieffler is PTC/USER's Director of Technical Committees. He works at the Lockheed Martin Engineering Process Improvement Center in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.