Since USA Swimming rolled out SWIMS 3.0 about two months ago, there has been mounting frustration among the membership over technical issues with the new software. For media, there have been a number of issues with related systems, like times lookups, not working.
But things are beginning to stabilize, and one-by-one the problems are clearing up.
Late last week, I spoke with USA Swimming’s Patrick Murphy, who is leading the effort to modernize the organization’s information technology resources. In this interview, we discuss what went wrong with the rollout, how those problems are being fixed, why the change had to happen, and Patrick answers the question: “Should USA Swimming be in the software business?”
USA Swimming Support Link: https://swimssupport.usaswimming.org/support/home
It’s been a couple months since this interview. Can we have a follow up interview and update on status, progress, and timelines? It would be better if USAS simply posted updates, but I don’t see that happening. Every update I’m hearing or lack thereof is word of mouth.
Just another USAS SNAFU. Things will continue to be FUBAR.
USA Swimming has dropped the ball-Swims 3.0 has been a failure. All at the expense of member clubs and LSC’s who are left trying to navigate parents thru the frustrating process with little to no support.
This will only get worse in December when large portion of members go to re-register.
I heard Patrick allude to what I feel is the end goal. Getting the 58 LSCs that don’t operate the way USAS wants them to, out of their way. While I heard some adulation to coaches, I heard no appreciation to the individual clubs or LSCs that manage 95% of the sport and members.
National Team, revenue and control of the membership.
I have not encountered a single person who thinks this has been successful. Too many issues to adequately list here.
My career has been in product development and modernization…USAS came up with a half baked modernization concept, didn’t engage stakeholders appropriately (or at all?), didn’t test it, and rushed it into production with a boneheaded timeline.
There’s a whole thing with lean startup methodology where you quickly implement a stripped down minimally viable product and iterate on it once you have customer feedback coming in, which at first glance seems like it might have been what USAS was going for…but if so, they dropped the ball big time.
I’m confused…. why would USAS roll this out when they new it wasn’t ready right before a new registration cycle? Am I missing something?
@Braden Keith, I love your interviews because you ask the guests tough questions and you don’t sugarcoat it like Mel or Coleman (no offense).
I would love seeing you interviewing more high level swimmers. Editorial stuff is good, but your interview skills are excellent.
Your last one was with Tom Shields, so it’s been a minute. Hopefully when Dressel accepts to come to the pod or his agent Erika gives him the green light, you’re going to be the one interviewing him because I know you’re not gonna go easy on him and you’re gonna dig deep into everything that happened.
Finally, where is the SS breakdown for this week?
We’ve been waiting since Tuesday 😉😉
They should just remove true tag with the day and time and make it’suprise
I don’t think Dressel (or mostly his agent) is going to accept an interview about what happened last summer without agreeing beforehand what are acceptable topics to broach – that’s probably gonna mean there’s not gonna be any particularly tough questions.
I still don’t understand this. Registration isn’t clear and there are going to be thousands of memberships that are going to expire. Why isn’t there a RENEW link for those members? This all should have been tested by real members, regular (non technical) folks.. all could have been avoided. Why the hard cutover to all of this before it’s ready? I click on Registration from within the app and it tells me to scan a code on the USA swimming website. How hard would it be to put a link in the app to that QR code? Or, can someone please provide it here bc it’s nowhere to be found, at least I cannot find it. Yet all 3 of… Read more »
This snafu is going to cost thousands of members not to renew. At a time when membership is already down. The magnitude of this screwup cannot be understated.
The non-athlete certification(s) and reporting of same – really bad. Reportability and timeliness are keys to ensuring the non-athletes are certified and qualified to be in charge of team activities. Complete breakdown of most of it.