How can Disney improve the Disney Experience?

[Grumpy6264]

Ideally, test plans will be written prior to coding. When you let a developer develop test plans while they are coding, you typically get testing of just what was changed, not necessary testing of overall system function. That may be fine for unit testing the specific coding changes, but with systems of this nature, you need a very good QA department. If I click this button instead of clicking that button, what happens.

It is a huge undertaking, but one that has to be rigorously executed to ensure your system works as desired.

 

[ScubaCat]

Here's my #1: Use some of the substantial price markup to ensure that all dining establishments serve edible food.

 

[Dean Marino]

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[Henwen88]

I’d like to see things changed so you don’t need to have a doctorate in planning to do a trip. It used to be show up and get in line. Now you have to preplan just about everything, for us it’s taking the fun out of going.

I’d love to have planning at WDW go back to being more similar to planning DL-maybe dining reservations 60 days out, fast passes day of. This six month out planning of where and when I want to eat drives me nuts-and I love me some disney planning. My family haaates this level of rigidity.

Completely agree. It's gotten to the point where a vacation involving any more than my immediate family (hubby and kiddo) is immensely stressful to plan and getting to be not worth the trouble. I love my DVC, and I love being in the position to treat friends/family to a vacation, but it is turning into Anything but a vacation for me, the Native Guide. They need to apply the KISS principle - top notch service, consistently high quality food/accommodations, the occasional magical moment. And if they insist on having us jump through all these planning hoops, then dang it, get their tech in order!!!

 

[Frederic Civish]

Here's my #1: Use some of the substantial price markup to ensure that all dining establishments serve edible food.

I really have to agree with this. Most of the table serve restaurants are good to excellent. Some of the counter service restaurants are decent. But some of the counter service restaurants including almost all of the cafeterias at the resorts are truly lacking in quality, flavor, variety, and edibility.

 

[BEASLYBOO]

I'm with Crisi, I get enough Disney at the parks and in the subtle ways they've intermingled the hidden Mickey's in the art work, yada, yada,. I do wish rather than "more" Disney theming, that DVC stuck with the resort theming (OKW, Beach Club etc.), rather than trying to save a buck by making all of the finishes generically interchangeable. Each resort has/had it charms and should have the benefit of it's intended theming.

and to the point of the website, there's no reason that transfer points shouldn't be able to show in your account, once the transfer is made, it's utterly ridiculous after all of these years that they can't work this out. I mean what kind of a Mickey Mouse operation is this!

 

[Frederic Civish]

. . . to the point of the website, there's no reason that transfer points shouldn't be able to show in your account, once the transfer is made, it's utterly ridiculous after all of these years that they can't work this out. I mean what kind of a Mickey Mouse operation is this!

EXACTLY. It IS a Mickey Mouse operation. Thanks for the pun.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

Different refillable mugs for each resort!

 

[Mumof4mice]

My husband was recruited to apply for the VP job you are describing, they went with promote from within - we looked at each other and said "oh, they aren't interested in fixing it." You don't fix major problems by promoting the people who created the problems.

My friend was approached with a similar opportunity. She was explicitly told Disney was looking for someone with a proven track record to execute their established directives and plans. In the role she would have little scope for innovation, fixing problems, or optimising the operations in any substantial way. She ultimately declined (much to my disappointment. Imagine the perks she'd have access to!)

 

[crisi]

My friend was approached with a similar opportunity. She was explicitly told Disney was looking for someone with a proven track record to execute their established directives and plans. In the role she would have little scope for innovation, fixing problems, or optimising the operations in any substantial way. She ultimately declined (much to my disappointment. Imagine the perks she'd have access to!)

This was "we need someone to fix our webservices - at a VP level reporting directly to the CIO." About two years ago. He ended up a Gartner Research Director - in DevOps and related stuff - it sounds like some of you have probably talked to him on the phone (or talked to one of his colleagues). And he'd agree with you guys....

(Another pet peeve - Agile does not mean "throw something into production every two weeks and see if it works."

 

[Mumof4mice]

This was "we need someone to fix our webservices - at a VP level reporting directly to the CIO." About two years ago. He ended up a Gartner Research Director - in DevOps and related stuff - it sounds like some of you have probably talked to him on the phone (or talked to one of his colleagues). And he'd agree with you guys....

(Another pet peeve - Agile does not mean "throw something into production every two weeks and see if it works."

The role she was offered was VP of marketing for Asia (it was before Disney split the region into North and South Asia). I remember being surprised. At that level if you're parachuted in, it's to fight fires! But she said 90% of her work would be "licensing toiletries and food"; the theme parks were there to cast a halo so Disney could sell cookies.

I would love Disney to return to that business model, so the souvenir purchasers can continue to subsidize my fun. Unfortunately Disney's figured out the crown jewel in the line up can also be a revenue generator.

 

[E2ME2]

OMG - now the Disboards are echoing my daily work issues!
Aaaaaaaagggggghhhhhh! I need DVC to get away from Agile without documentation, SCRUMS with no direction, Daily Stand-ups just for the sake of meeting daily, and everything still blows up in Production.
I think it goes way beyond Disney, and it's a sign of the contemporary IT development and implementation talent pool across the nation/world.

OK - back to happy thoughts; 66 Days until we spend 21N in Orlando!!

 

[Dean Marino]

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[E2ME2]

You have been "agiled and scrummed" . Buzz crap from at least 12 years ago . This buzz crap was hot, around 2007 . Your managers are OLD .

No, my managers are not old, just behind the curve. It’s a Federal agency, so we are typically 5-10 years behind the “bleeding edge” of technology. PMI is also behind the curve - they are incorporati g Agile methods inthe latest PMBOK.
IT’s all recycled TQM & SPC stuff from the 50s. We still use “A4” approaches and “LEAN”

 

[Bing Showei]

PMI is also behind the curve - they are incorporati g Agile methods inthe latest PMBOK.
IT’s all recycled TQM & SPC stuff from the 50s. We still use “A4” approaches and “LEAN”

Aaaand now I know how non-Disneyers feel reading these boards.

 

[Frederic Civish]

Aaaand now I know how non-Disneyers feel reading these boards.

Yeah, but the point is, Disney’s IT seems to be mediocre at best. Unstable, undependable and slow, Slow, SLOW!

 

[hayesdvc]

You cannot view your "plans" this morning on line

 

[Novakm]

I have my own theory about why Disney IT is bad. It’s a problem with many other companies also.

I call it the 80% solution. For many companies, any time they add new functionality or new systems, they only plan to have it work 80% of the time. You will hear start up CEOs saying things like “if you are not embarrassed by the first release, you waited too long”.

Unfortunately, all the loose ends never get tied up. As you start to stack problems on top of problems, they don’t add, they multiply. The bigger a company gets and the longer it lasts the worse the problems get.

Eventually the whole system crashes and you hire a new CIO, who puts in an 80% fix and the cycle starts again.

To improve the Disney experience, start by fixing My Disney Experience.

 

[Dean Marino]

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[CraigInPA]

Items you see on view source are resolved by the browser, not the web server itself. It's common to see if statements due to browser incompatibilities. These aren't symptoms of crap, but actually evidence that someone has actually thought about or tested issues that come up when various browsers are in use. It is impossible to develop a website beyond the most rudimentary that does not encounter browser incompatibilities, especially with the Edge (Microsoft) browser.

Hitting reload over and over just forces the web server code to try again. Depending upon the underlying cause of the failure, it may work.the second or tenth time (when the issue is connectivity to an overloaded resource), or it may never work (various code bugs, servers down, middleware failures, etc..)

Disney's IT is typical of what one finds in companies where technology isn't their primary focus. Want to see great code? Look at Netflix. Their site MUST work in order to stay in business. Disney doesn't put forth the effort, subcontracts to lowest cost providers, and doesn't value the IT resource to make it a priority. So we will always be the Guinea pigs for every release of code.