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SDTimes posted an article about the ever-increasing importance of the business analyst (BA) in software development. In this piece, author Jennifer deJong describes the new style analyst, a role that demands more IT expertise and a deeper business understanding than ever before. No longer the generic bridge between business and IT, the new business analyst must tap into everything from strategic issues (e.g. a company’s exit strategy) to technical implementation specifics.
This “new analyst” idea underscores what iRise has been evangelizing. The BA’s role is to bridge the communication gap between business and IT. iRise’s visualization software elegantly solves that problem by bringing both parties together to easily review and iterate a proposed application, then use the approved simulation as a blueprint to which both teams refer back. Visualization is what allows a BA to cut through the miscommunication issues that often plague application projects. The status quo for doing visual mock-ups has traditionally been static wire frames and PowerPoint screen shots – a process that can be painful, costly and time-intensive. As the BA function has evolved, the technology has now finally caught up so business analysts can fly through simulations in high fidelity with a group of stakeholders, leaving the days of missed requirements and rework behind.
To learn more about the shifting role of the business analyst, listen to Carey Schwaber’s Webinar and the report she co-authored with Rob Karel.
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iRise recently conducted a national survey of IT professionals around application definition. The survey revealed that 72% of IT professionals are suffering from increased development cost due to rework and scope creep . According to the survey, poor communication is a fundamental problem. Respondents cited “business stakeholders not being fully invested in the definition process’ or ‘having unrealistic expectations of the end result,” as the key problem in application definition communication.
Last week’s blog post by Forrester Research’s Carey Schwaber, “Which Vendors Have Made A Difference In App Dev?” 
acknowledged iRise for “waking up the market to the limitations of textual requirements.” This survey shows that many IT professionals are still in need of “awakening.”
Additional survey findings include:
- Over 60% of companies experienced delays, cost overruns and missing features in an application development project in the past two years;
- IT professionals that are prototyping applications are using MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint and MS Visio to document requirements, and over 60% of these respondents are not fully satisfied with their current method of defining applications;
- 30% of participants said that they are not testing applications before development at all; and,
- Almost 80% of respondents are interested in eliciting customer feedback using a fully functional prototype before coding.
To download the free executive report of this survey visit:
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We are proud to announce the winners in the iRise “Visualize the Prize” Video Commercial Contest. The 15 semi-finalists received more than 4,500 votes during the two weeks of voting that ended on June 20th, and it was a pretty tight race.
The winning entry was “iRise Recipe” submitted by Brian Palatucci of Santa Monica, California. Brian wins $15,000 for his video which depicts a man preparing dinner for his girlfriend while asking the question, “What if there was a way to learn from your mistakes without ever having to make one?”
There were 2 runners-up entries that each claimed a prize of $2,500.
“Foresight is 20/20” by Michael Beeson of Great Falls, Montana – This video looked at iRise from the perspective of a spectacle manufacturer which lost its focus before trying iRise. “It’s made painful hindsight a thing of the past because thanks to iRise, foresight is now 20/20.”
“A Celebration of iRise” by Ron Rogers of Healdsburg, California – This video compared the process of developing company Web sites to the wine industry which doesn’t reveal the finished product until the very end. “Now that calls for a celebration!”
Visit the official contest website to check out the semi-finalists and all contest entries.
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Forrester analyst Carey Schwaber published a blog post this week titled “Which Vendors Have Made A Difference In App Dev?” - and iRise was nominated as one of her 5 difference-making vendors.
Carey started out her post by wondering which of the vendors she covers have had a broad-reaching impact on changing the way development works:
Forget which vendor’s tool has the best bells and whistles. Which vendor has really made the most difference? Which vendor has delivered products or services that have really improved project outcomes? Or resulted in worse project outcomes? Not just a single project outcome, but hundreds or even thousands of project outcomes.
iRise was nominated by Carey for:
Waking the market up to the limitations of textual requirements and providing an accessible and effective alternative.
In addition to mentioning iRise partner IBM Rational, Carey also nominated Sun (Java Platform), Junit (test-driven development) and Thoughtworks (agile practices pioneer) as game-changing vendors.
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Carey Schwaber, Senior Analyst from Forrester Research presented at the iRise-sponsored June Catalyze community webcast last week.
In addition to presenting her top 10 list of ways to improve project outcomes for business analysts and others involved in software definition, Carey answered nearly 20 questions from the audience. If you missed the live broadcast, you will definitely want to listen to the webcast recording so you can hear Carey’s unique perspective on the role of business analysts, software definition and requirements.
For a sneak preview, here is a peak at Carey’s top 10 list:
- Define the business-IT division of labor
- Be part of the team
- Understand and communicate impact
- Define future as well as present business needs
- Remember non-functional requirements
- Make requirements painless for the business
- Measure project progress in terms of requirements
- Don’t rely solely on text
- Maximize feedback on requirements
- Invest in future project outcomes too
The webcast was recorded and can be viewed in the iRise Media Center, and the slides from the presentation have been embedded below.
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The voting period for the iRise $20k Visualize the Prize Video Commercial contest starts today and runs through Friday June 20th at Midnight.
Help us select the overall winner and two runners-up by going over to the Official Voting page and casting your vote for your favorite video. You may vote once per day, so make sure to visit and vote often. The winner will be the video that captures the most votes over the next two weeks and will take home $15,000. The two runners-up will each get $2,500.
We ended up with 44 entries in the contest, and the iRise panel of judges selected 15 semi-finalists for the public voting part of the contest. There are some very good videos left in the competition and we expect to see an extremely tight race.
We will announce the winners before the end of June. All of the entries are still available for viewing on the iRise Video Contest Entries page.
Thank you to everyone who sent in a video submission, and best of luck to the 15 semi-finalists.
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Catalyze Webcast – “10 Tips for Driving Better Project Outcomes”
Featuring Carey Schwaber of Forrester Research
Thursday, June 12 @ 10am Pacific/1pm Eastern
Register for the webcast here.
It’s no secret that in the battle to bring effective business software to market on time and on budget, business analysts are on the front line.
- What can business analysts do to improve requirements definition practices and make a difference in project outcomes?
- What skills do business analysts need?
- What roles can they play?
- What tools should they use, and what role should those tools play?
Don’t miss this valuable online seminar sponsored by iRise and featuring one of the industry’s leading experts on the subject of requirements definition, Carey Schwaber, a senior analyst from Forrester Research. Carey has talked with hundreds of organizations that use a variety of requirements definition tools and methods. From this experience and accumulated knowledge, she has developed a set of 10 practical tips that you can immediately put into action in your own organization.
If you cannot make the live webcast, the recording will be uploaded to the iRise and Catalyze websites by June 16.
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iRise Now Available In 9 Countries Outside of United States
Good news if you live in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, India, Brazil or Mexico because iRise is now immediately available for purchase in your country.
According to Maurice Martin, president, chief operating officer and founder of iRise, “Business software projects have suffered for years with poor communication of needs and requirements – and these issues are not isolated to North America. We’re seeing strong demand for visualization from all over the world as a strategy to finally solve one of the last great problems in software delivery and we’re excited to be able to begin the process of offering iRise globally.”
Digital River helped us set up an online shopping portal for outside the US. They will act as our ‘merchant’ and will be able to take credit cards for international orders. The iRise Inside Sales team can now easily respond to international inquiries and will provide access to the site.
The press release announcing this capability is available from the iRise website.
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Oriol Servia qualified the KV Racing Technology #5 Honda/Dallara/Firestone with an average speed of 220.767 mph, placing him 25th on the starting grid for the 92nd running of the Indianapolis 500 next Sunday.
“Visualize” the iRise logos on the #5 car.
Servia, who is making his first appearance at the Speedway will become just the second Spaniard to start an Indianapolis 500 when the green flag drops on Sunday. Oriol has extensive oval experience (29 oval starts in nine years), and has been the strongest of the drivers transitioning from the Champ Car World Series to IndyCar on ovals this year.
The race will be watched live in 344 million homes in more than 200 countries around the world. Be sure to watch the live broadcast on ABC at 9am Pacific on Sunday, May 25th.
iRise will be hosting over 45 executives on the Saturday before the race at another of our successful executive roundtable events.
Keynote speakers include:
- Denis O’Leary, former CIO, JPMorgan Chase (moderator)
- Harvey Koeppel, Executive Director, Center for CIO Leadership, funded by IBM
on “CIO 2.0 – How to Avoid the Extinction of CIOs by 2012” - Steven Sheinheit, former CIO, MetLife on “Addressing Large Scale, Real World Challenges: The CIO View”
- Hunter Murtaugh, Creative Director, Strategic Marketing, EMI Music on “How Professional Athletes Leverage Music for Inspiration”
Stay tuned here for updates!
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We just rolled out a new Media Center on the iRise website last week. You should definitely check out the Media Center if you’re interested in learning more about how to use iRise and learning what others are saying about iRise. With the Media Center Launch, we have included 9 new Product “QuickTakes” and 5 Product Walk Through videos. You can also check out general videos on iRise along with video testimonials from our customers and partners.
iRise Product “QuickTakes” are short 2-3 minute videos that cover the following topics:
- Masters and Templates
- The iDoc
- Capturing Text Requirements
- Managing Feedback
- Datasheets
- Walk Through Notes
- iRise and Collaboration
- Building Business Logic
- iRise Scenarios
iRise Product Walk Throughs are longer videos and include detailed demos and explanations of iRise:
- Getting Started with iRise
- Page Components in iRise
- iRise Detailed Demo
Stay tuned as we will be adding more videos to the site in the near future.
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