The iRise Blog

Today, iRise announced the the release of iRise Professional Edition, a single user version of its popular team-based software visualization authoring tool. For the first time, individual business analysts, interface designers and project managers can now leverage the same powerful visualization techniques in use by over hundreds of corporate customers to get business critical software projects to market faster, with less cost and risk.  Read more about iRise Professional Edition here. 

iRise Professional Edition is available now for purchase and also can also be downloaded for 30 day free trials directly from the iRise Web site.

In addition, you can download useful iRise iDocs from the iDoc Library page or view iRise “Product QuickTake” videos from the Media Center.

Enjoy!

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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.

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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:

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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?

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In the March 2008 issue of the Harvard Business Review, David Upton and Bradley Staats from the Harvard Business School wrote an article about a radically new approach to developing IT systems called the path-based approach. As the authors state in the opening sentence, “enterprise IT projects continue to be a headache for business leaders.”

The article is a case study of Japan’s Shinsei Bank IT department and how they revolutionized retail banking in Japan.  Masamoto Yashiro, the former chairman of Citibank Japan, was brought in as the new CEO in 2000 and he hired Jay Dvivedi, who used to run IT operations for Citibank Japan as his Chief Information Officer.  Together, they led the development of a new enterprise IT system using the path-based method of application development. They call it the path-based approach because it focuses on providing a path for the system to be developed instead of attempting to define all of the specifications or requirements for a system before the project is launched. Shinsei succeeded in developing and deploying an entirely new enterprise system in one year at a cost of $55 million. 

Traditionally, there are two choices for building a major enterprise system - the “big bang” approach of replacing the current system and processes all at once or the incremental method of improving the existing system one piece at a time.  Shinsei did not want the risk of the “big bang” method and did not have the time to implement the incremental method, so they chose a third method called the path-based method.  Some of the principles of the path-based method are variations on old themes while others are totally unconventional. 

Here are some things they learned:

Don’t just align business and IT strategies - forge them together — Besides having the CIO report to the CEO, Shinsei business managers spend significant amounts of time in learning about IT.  In addition, they focus on understanding “foreseeable business objectives” and the interaction between business and IT groups is iterative and continuous.

Strive for extreme simplicity — Shinsei succeeded by employing the simplest possible technologies.  There were three keys to their simpler approach, limit the number of standards, create simple re-usable solutions and apply modularity to clearly specify user interfaces.

Give (some) power to the people — Many project failures stem from organized resistance to new systems.  When Shinsei rolls out a new system, they start by offering an interface that is similar to the old system - and only after users are comfortable with a new system do they turn off the old screens.  Shinsei also created a system for including feedback and requests from employees, customers, business users and technical users.  Comments have averaged about 100 requests per day which helps Shinsei continually improve systems and processes.

The conclusion is that “businesses must focus on building IT systems that cannot fail to improve…and adopting the path-based approach will provide flexible systems that can change as the business demands and can shift IT from being a simple platform for existing operations to a launchpad for new functions and brand new businesses.” 

Imagine what would happen if you marry path-based method of application development with the visualization capabilities of iRise? 

The complete article is a worthwhile read and is currently available for free from the Harvard Business Review website.

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Project risk is keeping federal computer analysts (aka “business analysts” in the private sector) up at night. InformationWeek recently reported on some statistics by the U.S. Office of Management & Budget (OMB) where CIO Karen Evans was quoted as saying “there are 585 projects valued at $27B on the ‘management watch list,’ although some of those have also been deemed high risk. Projects can be deemed high risk for a variety of reasons, including being high-cost, highly complex, or high profile.” Typically project failure results in rework which we define as being a result of any, or all, of these factors:

• IT built a different project than the agency envisioned
• the application has missing features
• citizens or government employees won’t adopt it because it’s too hard to use

Mastering the customer experience is probably one of the single biggest playbook pages the government is now borrowing from private industry. It’s moving towards making agency sites as easy-to-use as highly trafficked consumer information and e-commerce sites such as Amazon, Travelocity and eBay. Adopting a customer-centric practice in application development means that crucial stakeholder buy-in happens up front, in the design phase of the project. It also means that usability testing happens before the application is built and with real end users.

Federal industry expert Steve Meltzer, president of Meltzer & Associates and former director of the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Federal Computer Acquisition Center captured the government’s new priorities in IT purchasing and development:

“The public sector does not buy IT for IT’s sake, but rather is driven by advancing the President’s priorities and providing citizens with easy accessibility to information.”

Today, we announced our entry into the federal market, led by Dean Terry with Spectrum Systems as our reseller. iRise helps to increase the success rates for federal IT projects because stakeholders – including the employees in the trenches – have the opportunity to test drive the application before it’s built. The release on our third round of funding, also issued today, referenced expansion into new markets and our entrance into the public sector signals the first example of that.

Learn more about iRise’s solution for the federal market by visiting this industry-specific page.

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A recent article by Steve Lohr in the New York Times caught my attention. He was talking about the effects of the expected economic downturn (ok he used the recession word) on technology spending. That followed up by a related article on the InformationWeek site this week coming to the same conclusion. I’m glad to see the mainstream media is not playing their usual role of “Chicken Little” declaring that the technology sky is falling.

We see it the same way.

Cycles of economic boom and “correction” are normal and really not something to panic about. Whether the economy is bullish or bearish doesn’t change fundamental business execution. In fact, forward-thinking companies use periods of economic turnmoil to accelerate investments in technology at a time when maybe their competition is being conservative. When the ecomony starts rolling again, they come out ahead.

Most of the CIOs and business executives we’ve talked with in the last few months expect the economy to get worse before it gets better. But the laws of supply and demand will eventually catch up and the global economy will improve. In the meantime, global spending on business software is actually increasing in 2008, to $191 billion according to industry analyst powerhouse Gartner Group. These projects may shift their focus to efficiency and productivity gains as companies try to lower costs. And some companies might slow down ‘risky’ innovation initiatives. In any case, hundreds of billions of dollars are still going to be spent on technology projects. The success of these initiatives rests squarely on the communication between business people and IT. Visualization becomes the key strategy for getting these projects delivered on time and on budget; whether you’re innovating or tightening your belt.

The bottom line? Technology companies that solve big problems will do just fine. And visualization solves one of the biggest problems out there.

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A cop walking his beat one night finds a drunk on his knees, searching for something on the street. The cop asks the drunk, “What are you doing?” “Looking for my car keys,” says the drunk. The cop asks, “Where did you lose your keys?” “I don’t know,” the man answers. The cop, a bit perplexed, asks, “Then, why are you looking here if you don’t know where you lost your keys?” Responds the drunk, “Because the light is better here, under the street light.” 

- Author Unknown

When I think about the story above , I realize that organizations trying to quantify the value of investing in requirements definition often do something similar.  They look where it’s easiest.  Many vendors (and consequently, now customers) are well aware of the Standish Group’s CHAOS Report.  It’s been shining a spotlight on  the issue of rework in the context of software development for several years now.   Reduction of rework has become the measure of choice for managers looking to defend investments in requirements definition.  Rework is what’s under the streetlight.  It’s where we look, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

What often goes unseen – and has the potential to dwarf the value inherent in reducing “rework” – is the follow-on effect of reducing rework, namely, accelerated time to market.  If an application is brought to market even a couple months early it can mean many things:

• Extra months of additional revenue (for revenue generating projects)
• Extra months of productivity gains (for internal productivity-centric projects)
• Extra months of competitive advantage – or “stopping the bleeding” when catching up to a competitor who is already in the lead with a product

When considering the projected ROI for enterprise applications, a couple months represents significant value.

In the same vein, I stumbled upon the following quote from McKinsey: “If a company is later to market with a new product by only six months, 33 percent of the gross profit potential is lost over the product life cycle.” In contrast, “Improving time to market by one month improves profits by 12 percent.”

Who wouldn’t want to avoid losing 33% of their gross profit potential?  The benefits from getting to market early (regardless of whether you define “market” as internal or the consumer market at large) are hard to ignore.  Yet they very rarely show up in a business case.

Rework isn’t the only place to look for time-to-market advantages.  Focusing on requirements definition not only reduces re-work – it also reduces WORK work.  At an agile development conference in 2006, Mary Poppendiek (author of Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit for Software Development Managers) shared that  45% of code that’s written is NEVER EXECUTED!  Another 20% is only rarely executed.  It is however coded, documented, tested, trained, supported, maintained, etc.  All of which adsorbs resources – and adds time & cost – to projects.  Getting the requirements right interactively and up-front with end users helps make sure that unnecessary functionality never gets built.  What if your development teams could get 45% additional bandwidth simply by not working on stuff that will never be used?  Less stuff to build & test means, you guessed it, shortened time to market.

If you find yourself wondering how to measure time to market, ask your business partners what value having the right application months earlier would mean.  I’ll bet they can tell you…

If you find yourself building an ROI calculation in support of focus on requirements definition, I hope you’ll grab a flashlight, wander away from the streetlight, and have a look around the street.  If you’re not building an ROI for requirements definition, shouldn’t you be?

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Rich Frost, from General Motors presented a case study on GM’s implementation of iRise.  He initially compared using simulation in product design to simulation in system design.  “We simulate before we cut metal with our vehicles and now we simulate before we cut code for our systems”.

GM views it’s product design centers as influencers of global collaboration.  The product design centers are used for new vehicle design and for simulating components.  The net result is that they are now developing award-winning cars through global involvement with customers and are getting to market faster with increased quality.
 

Rich outlined 4 reasons to use simulation for system design:

1. business complexity
2. business clarity
3. collaboration
4. speed of development

At GM, all new systems are designed for now designed for global adoption and implementation.  Other complexities impact GM include:  327,000 employees, products are sold in 200 countries, there are 176 manufacturing plants in 34 countries consuming 14 million pounds of raw material daily, they have 14,000 dealers which all operate as independent businesses and they have 160,000 unique part numbers.

Global adoption at GM drives collaboration.  They have set iRise as the enterprise standard for GM, Suppliers and Joint Ventures.  iRise has also been integrated into Standard System Delivery Process.

iRise allows GM the ability to quickly simulate functionality and to:

• demonstrate live working models with logic and process flow
• engage customers to see systems come to life early
• discover missing, unknown and unclear requirements

The interactive model iRise simulation also forms an integral part of the final RFP.

The global benefits include visual confirmation of requirements and process in a language neutral and collaborative environment.

Rich outlined one of the “sample projects” at GM, a dealer system designed to replace more than 250 legacy systems.  Partnering with CapGemini and using their rapid design and visualization approach to visualize and harmonize processes globally, GM was able to quickly observe users, document findings, generate requirements, develop design insights and create visualization in under 6 months.

The project resulted in 500 simulations reviewed in 50 global sessions.  They reduced process time reduced by 65% and discovered that 94% of all processes were globally common.  Rich commented that they wouldn’t have been able to identify so many common processes without simulation.  Finally, the well-defined system enabled GM to reduce training time through quicker adoption.

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Emmet B. Keeffe, CEO of iRise spelled out his vision for iRise and the future of application simulation at today’s partner conference, Fusion ‘07. His roadmap began with a prediction that by 2020 all business software will be simulated prior to development. It’ll be a trend that companies will have to follow as those who do will reduce their time and cost to market by 50%. If that prediction becomes true, it could be enormous business because every year organizations invest $500 billion into business software (source: Forrester). Currently iRise helps customers reduce software development costs and time to market by as much as 30%, Keefe said.

Keeffe believes the trend to software simulation is inevitable given the trends of other CAD (computer aided design) industries like architecture. He asked an architect friend of his when he knew he had to move from paper design to CAD. He said it was because his competitor did it first, lowered his cost structure, and now the paper designing architect was no longer competitive. Keeffe’s architect friend had no choice. He had to adopt CAD if he wanted to stay in business.

I spoke with Keeffe last night at dinner and he said that the one thing that keeps coming up over and over again is the growing and tenuous relationship between business analysts and business users. He is focusing much of his energy helping companies build a people process transformation to help evolve this relationship. Like any major transformation, it’s an issue that has to happen from the top down.

Another hope Keeffe projected for 2020 is that packaged software firms will adopt iRise as a simulation of their own software for their customers. For example, an enterprise application like SAP would sell its software with a built-in iRise simulation tool that the SAP customer can test first before deployment.

Lastly, Keeffe understands that there’s pressure in the software development life cycle (SDLC) to reduce time to market. While Keeffe and iRise’s objective is to help customers reduce SDLCs he wants customers to see iRise as an innovation tool that can be used to test multiple ideas visually so they can more safely determine which one they want to fund.

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