Post: 1-7-28-84 OR Why Done is not the End

Topic: Check-Up after feature delivery
Target Group: Admins, In-House Consultants or SF Product Owners
Complexity: Easy

I’m always scared, scared that what I’ve built does not properly work, stops working, or is not used.
As an in-house consultant, I tried to follow the 1-7-28-84 rule.
After 1 day, 7 days, 28 days, and 84 days I check if the feature I delivered is still working and used.
All I need for that are a report and a few reminders in my calendar.

As part of “Done”, I create some kind of control report which allows me to quickly see if the feature is still working and used (e.g. Leads created LeadSource=”Web” Last 7 Days).
I set up 4 reminders in regular intervals (1,7,28,84) to check the feature. All I need to do is click on the report, see if there are records. Done in seconds.

In case there are no records I can immediately start hunting for the reason and fixing any issues, hopefully before the business even notices.
Sometimes I write a short email to the original requester that everything still works as expected.
Following up on features doesn’t take much time but can make all the difference.

In case there’s no easy report to be created, I either quickly ask the original requester of the feature or implement Feature Adoption Tracking.

What is your experience, anybody else doing something similar?

Disclaimer: This post applies only to internals or people who are responsible for (parts) of an Org. This does not apply to the traditional SI business with “Deliveries”.