The iRise Blog

SOA or service-oriented architecture is a chronically hot topic - and there are as many opinions about it as there are IT vendors.  According to Wikipedia, SOA is “is a computer system’s architectural style for creating and using business processes, packaged as services, throughout their lifecycle. SOA also defines and provisions the IT infrastructure to allow different applications to exchange data and participate in business processes.”  And for a more humorous definition of SOA overload, check out Greg the Architect in the “SOA This, SOA That” video from YouTube.

We recently had an interesting internal email discussion on how iRise deals with SOA and I have excerpted the highlights below:

From Sherrick Murdoff, VP of Alliances and Business Development:

• “SOA is most often interpreted as back-end plumbing only, but this is not the case.  SOA includes the back-end plumbing, but you don’t start with the back-end plumbing and you don’t start with building web services
• What many CIOs and industry leaders have learned and are promoting is to start with the customer experience – this should drive your SOA implementation more than anything. iRise lets you visualize the customer experience and iterate with both end-users and IT to gain alignment on what needs to be built that drives the “how”
• Visualizing SOA is important to let the customer experience drive the requirements for what infrastructure you need to put in place
• iRise aligns well in any SOA discussion and brings the customer back to what is important – visualizing “what” you need before you begin to think about the “how” you want to implement.”

From Matt Smith, Senior Enterprise Solutions Manager

• “Most people over-think the relationship between SOA and simulating applications.  SOA basically means there is a provider (machine) and a consumer (machine or human) of a service. 
• The processing of the service is all the back-end wizardry that goes on within the SOA, which iRise doesn’t diagram in the traditional sense of architecture modeling tools, but it does simulate the action.
• The line of business manager and end-user don’t care how the SOA actually processes the service request.  iRise simulates the important bit from their perspective of application usability.”

From James McWethy, Enterprise Solutions Director

• “SOA…three loaded letters.  I’ve seen companies spend years talking about defining and implementing an SOA strategy.
• Why not simulate the end-user experience that will result from the tiresome SOA planning process to: (1) Verify that the information being delivered via the service (informational or transactional) will be of value to the end user, and (2) simulate a set of components (portlets, widgets, gadgets, web parts, etc.) that will show the end result of a system comprised of multiple services.

iRise Customer Success Story - At Fusion ‘07, the Customer Experience team from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan gave a presentation on how they used iRise to simulate a technical proof of concept for their new member portal.  The presentation is available here and can be viewed here.

So, why risk building your SOA infrastructure without using iRise to engaging your end-users?  By simulating the end-user experience with iRise first, both business stakeholders and IT will win.

Share This

We announced the immediate availability of the iRise simulation template for the iPhone at the Interop and Software 2008 conferences yesterday.

“iRise for iPhone”™ gives business analysts, user experience (UX) professionals and others a way to quickly prototype the look, feel and behavior of iPhone applications by making available pre-defined visualization widgets and templates that can be quickly assembled into a high definition mobile applications. 

The template can simulate all of the iPhone’s standard menu icons and user actions, such as using sliders and zooming in and out of screens by “pinching” and “unpinching.” Application designers can use it to create custom buttons, manipulate the menu icons and define the effects of actions such as double-tapping a button.

Our alliance partner, OneSpring, developed the capability and is also providing the “OneSpring iPhone SimDK for iRise”. 

Chuck Converse, a senior user experience architect at OneSpring noted, “Most applications, if you design them for mobile devices, are very text-heavy.  The iPhone’s display capabilities give designers more freedom and a whole new set of choices.”

The full story is available from these related links:

• iRise iPhone press release
• Article from CIO.com and INTEROP

And here is the YouTube video produced by OneSpring which demos the iRise iPhone capability:

�

Share This

Emmet Keeffe, iRise CEO and Co-founder, had an opinion piece published this week in SandHill.com.  SandHill.com is the premier destination online destination for strategic information on the software business. The site and its newsletters are read by thousands of top software industry executives every week.

Emmet talks about “The Requirement Challenge” and why “Accurate Specs are Key”.  He finishes with “The Benefits of Visualization” which I am paraphrasing below:

• Business people can fully experience the product and make changes early in the process, saving significant time and downstream costs.
• Developers can catch design and functional errors before an application goes into production.
• The process can speed through multiple rounds of functional visual edits to quickly reach decisions on business needs and customer experience.
• Managers can increase final adoption of system with upfront agreements of the application’s process flow, experience and visual look and feel.
• User experience professionals can rapidly iterate proposed designs directly in front of customers, dramatically improving customer experience.
• Software sales teams can demo potential products to customers to get feedback before actually developing the application.
• The professional service teams can test a potential product for possible needed changes to speed implementation and integration.
• Sharing visualizations with global sourcing partners is not only easier but cheaper. Visualizations eliminate confusion with global development teams because everyone is speaking the same language.
• Resellers can sell a solution by showing a visualization of what a specific application could do when integrated into the customer’s environment

He wraps up by repeating his vision, “by 2020, all business software will be visualized before its built, just the same way that every car, airplane and semiconductor are visualized today.”

The entire piece is worth a read and can be found at SandHill.com.

Share This

A new article by Heather Havenstein about how UPS is bolstering their web application development with iRise came out in Computerworld.com yesterday. The article summarizes how UPS has overhauled it process of designing user interfaces for all of their new and upgraded web applications.

This story is not new to anyone who attended Fusion ‘07 last year as Guy Hamblen was one of the our featured speakers. In fact, you can read the blog post and listen to Guy’s presentation from this October iRise blog post.

Here are some new quotes from Guy:

• “The biggest challenge that an application development team has is eliciting the correct requirements at the beginning of the development effort”
• “By modeling the user interface in the requirements phase, the design team can be sure that it knows exactly what the user wants because it has used a simulated version”
• “That allowed us to improve our time to market with application-development releases. That is the fundamental business driver that iRise enabled for us”

The complete Computerworld article is available here.

Share This

The Standish Group  and others have reported over the past decade that more than 30% of all software made for users was, in hindsight, never needed or used to accomplish their mission. The project stakeholders discovered this only after the solutions were delivered at more than several thousand projects surveyed to date. Also reported widely, more than 20% of the code related to functionality and/or usability was found to be “missing” or “wrong” after the users had a chance to interact with the software in real-world mission scenarios. In the survey responses, the terms requirements “reworked” and “moved to the next release” are used interchangeable with the terms “missed”, “misunderstood”, and “changed.”

The Federal IT Budget - With the Standish statistics in mind, more than $10 billion dollars of the $70 billion dollar federal IT budget this year is earmarked for software modernization efforts. Most American citizens and government employees know these efforts are long overdue. The opportunity exists to reduce this expenditure by more than 10% or alternatively to get more for the taxpayer dollars invested on projects already in flight. There is a rapidly increasing “expectations gap” by users and acquirers alike as to what “good software” means for individuals and organizations to take care of business and fulfill assigned missions, tasks and goals.

The Government Needs To Innovate - Michael Schrage, a senior adviser to MIT’s Security Studies Programwrites, “Innovation’ isn’t what innovators do….it’s what customers and clients adopt. His research and advisory work explores the role of models, prototypes and simulations as collaborative media for managing innovation and risk. His ongoing work on strategic and “just-in-time” experimentation is at the core of several corporate transformation efforts. His insights into the economics of “hyperinnovation,” “‘iterative capital” and “innovation cross-subsidies” are redefining executive investment criteria for supply chain and customer relationship initiatives.” He is the author of Serious Play: How the World’s Best Companies Simulate to Innovate.  In the forward provided by Tom Peters, author of In Search of Excellence; Tom writes, “this is simply the best book written on innovation I’ve ever read.” …. “Read! Act! Now!”, he concludes.

Robert Austin, Harvard Chair of the CIO Executive Program focuses on management of innovative and knowledge intensive activities, especially as applied in creative industries and information technology management. He has written on these issues in Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know About How Artists Work (co-authored with Lee Devin) and The Role of IT in Innovation-Based Value Creation; where Rob writes, “it will soon be all too apparent. IT, finally mature enough to think of itself as an old dog, very badly needs a new trick.”

Partnering With The Government - Richard Frost is a Global Director at General Motors where he has responsibility for driving systems development, software engineering, and program management globally, including agile development, streamlined development processes, and requirements visualization. As a senior advisor to the SEI CMMI for Acquisition (CMMI-ACQ), a collaborative effort of GM, DoD and NASA, Rich has helped identify best practices for systems acquisition at GM and is helping  incorporate these into a CMMI framework for the customers of technology.

Through innovation and partnerships like GM’s collaboration with SEI, iRise’s expansion into the Federal Market announced last month is tasked with saving the Federal Government a “fistful of cash” and helping accelerate the software modernization efforts over the next several years.

Share This

We are very pleased to announce that the first annual iRise “Visualize the Prize” Commercial Contest starts today and has a total cash prize of $20,000.

Why are we doing this? According to chief marketing officer, Mitch Bishop, “We know we have passionate and creative users, and we want to let them share their passion with us and the broader iRise User community”.

So, what does it take to win? Are you passionate about iRise? Has iRise changed your life or the way you do business? Are you creative? Do you have a great idea for telling the world about the power of visualization?  Do you have a great way to motivate others to buy iRise?  Help us tell the world by creating a 30 to 60 second commercial about iRise and you could win $15,000.

Make us laugh, make us cry, make us think, make us say “wow, we didn’t think of that!” or “whoa, we didn’t think of that”.  You have total creative control to write, cast, direct and shoot your commercial.

We encourage you to tell us how you have used visualization and iRise to create something special.  Did you speed time to market, increase innovation, improve user experience or reduce costs?  Note that 30% of the judging criteria will be based on the liklihood to motivitate people to buy or try iRise.

What are the contest details?  A summary of the contest information has been copied below and is available from the contest website at www.irisevideo.com.  Please bookmark the website so you can check back frequently for new video submissions - and don’t forget to vote for your favorites during the voting period in June.

Prizes:

• The 1st place winner will receive $15,000
• Two Runner-up winners will receive $2,500 each

Dates:

• Contest starts Tuesday April 8, 2008
• Contest ends Wednesday June 4, 2008
• Top 10 semifinalists selected on June 6, 2008
• Voting period runs from Friday June 6, 2008 to Friday June 20, 2008

Contest Process:

1. Create a completely original commercial – 30 to 60 seconds long
2. Upload your video to YouTube by June 4, 2008
3. Register on the iRise Commercial website and submit the URL for your video
4. Wait for iRise to approve and post your commercial on this iRise Commercial website
5. Promote your iRise commercial video and watch all of the accepted videos on the iRise Commercial website

6. Vote for your favorite videos from June 6, 2008 to June 20, 2008

7. Complete rules are available here

In order to prime your creative pumps, here is an example iRise Commercial that I pulled together last week…and don’t worry, I’m not eligible to win:

Share This

Is your software simple and usable?

There was an interesting opinion piece at Sandhill.com last week titled “Simplicity: What’s Next in Business Software” by Anthony Deighton of QlikTech. 

Anthony pointed out that the gap between what software users experience in their workplace and in the rest of their life is widening while the line between work and home continues to blur.  Business users are starting to expect that the applications they use at work be as clear, user-friendly, intuitive and simple as the other software they use.

The bottom line is that enterprise software vendors must “simplify or die” by embracing a philosophy of simplicity or risk getting left behind in the future by innovative and emerging vendors.

There are several characteristics of “simple” software that Anthony lists in his piece, including:

• Continue to offer robustness - “simple” is not the same as “lite”
• Focus on the user - enterprise software vendors need to focus on the user for a change
• Revamp the value chain - make sure you pick partner vendors and service providers who embrace the simplicity vision
• Deliver a fast sales and implementation process - the product must be easy for users, but also deliver quick value to the business
• Relentlessly pursue simplicity - you have to keep focusing on making your product usable and faster to deploy

Check out the full article and complete discussion thread from this link.

Share This

I ran across an interesting blog post this week from Chris Woodill on how to be an effective stakeholder.  This post intrigued me because it examined the project team/stakeholder relations dynamic from the stakeholder angle rather than the putting all of the onus on the project team.  I have summarized some of Chris’ vision of the expected stakeholder roles and his counsel to stakeholders on “how not to drop the ball”. 

“Good” stakeholders need to:

• Make decisions - making decisions is the stakeholder’s primary responsibility
• Approve documents - timely approvals of decisions and documents
• Offer opinion and feedback -provide actionable feedback that can be translated into actions, revisions or improvements
• Solicit feedback - help explain, sell concepts and capture feedback from the broader community
• Support the team externally - evangelize the project, boost team confidence and help get organizational buy-in
• Maintain a high bar of expectations - demand excellence from the team 

In addition, “good” stakeholders should:

• Be prepared for all meetings - take the time to do your homework before all meetings
• Make decisions and offer feedback in a timely manner - don’t delay the project by being late
• Be nice to the team - don’t bully the team
• Articulate requirements clearly - if you are the domain expert, you need to provide clear and complete requirements to the team
• Embed themselves into the team as much as possible - refrain from making us and them distinctions

Being a “good” stakeholder can make a massive difference in the success of a project and minimize project risk at the same time. 

If you’re on a project team, you may want to forward this to your stakeholder.  If you’re a stakeholder, you may want to look in a mirror and ask yourself “am I a good stakeholder?”.

Share This

Do you know any IT Leaders who have made a positive impact on their organization through technology?

Premier 100 IT Leaders are known for:

• Promoting an IT vision that supports the company’s business strategy
• Tying technology and innovation to specific business needs and goals
• Using technology to gain a competitive advantage
• Being viewed as a leader by executive, IT staff and others in the industry

Computerworld has launched its annual search for technology professionals who have demonstrated leadership in their organizations through the use of IT and have the strategic vision to align technology with business goals.

The nomination form is available from this link and the deadline for submitting a nomination form is June 30, 2008.

Check these links for more information:

• Award Overview
• Premier 100 IT Leaders for 2008
• Computerworld IT Leaders Conference - iRise was a Platinum Sponsor for the 2008 conference

Share This

The CIO of CompuCredit gave a compelling talk this week on how to drive ‘disciplined innovation’ at the annual Computerworld Premier 100 conference in Orlando, FL. Dr. Guido Sacchi was honored at the conference as one of the top 100 CIOs in the country and is one of those CIOs that could easily be a COO or CEO in any company. He has that unusual ‘right brain - left brain’ combination that is powerful stuff in a business leader. According to Dr. Sacchi, ‘disciplined innovation’ is characterized by companies that have a high degree of execution skill, along with a high attitude for risk - another unusual combination of (corporate) skill sets. In his lively talk he spoke about the challenges that many CIOs face today: governance, too many ideas with too little execution and long cycle times; all of which tend to mire innovation in the mud of good intentions.

At CompuCredit they’ve solved these problems with leadership, focused execution of innovative new ideas and leveraging visualization as a strategy to dramatically reduce cycle times. CompuCredit has established an ‘innovation council’ made up of senior executives and other people in the company. They’ve also launched an ‘Idea Factory;’an internal Website that gives employees a platform to voice new ideas.

Using iRise to visualize applications during rapid, iterative and collaborative definition phases allows CompuCredit to “fail cheaply and fail fast,” according to Dr. Sacchi. And visualization is allowing the company to create “iPod equivalents;” applications that are so intuitive they require no training nor user manuals. Dr. Sacchi noted that iRise is also helping the IT organization drive higher quality applications to market faster, along with giving the company sourcing options that would not otherwise be available.

If you’re interested in learning more about CompuCredit’s approach, watch this video of Dr. Sacchi speaking at the iRise user conference in October.

What are some of the unique things your organization is doing to drive innovation? Any additional tips you can share?

Share This