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I really enjoy seeing companies you work with almost every day 
(in my case, alliance partners), take a leadership position to embrace
what you have been evangelizing to the market. Last month, Capgemini announced the launch of the Rapid Design & Visualization (RDV) Lab. Though the Lab is now available nationwide through all their Accelerated Solutions Environments (ASEs), the RDV Lab has been in place for several year and iRise has been actively working with and a primary solution in the practice with many joint customers. The announcement was made at SOA World, an appropriate place since visualization is critical to understanding what business stakeholders want that can be enabled in a SOA environment (but more on that in a later post…).
The RDV Lab continues to expand Capgemini’s work in the field of simulation by using a methodology that combines the latest simulation and communication tools with new research on how people create complex software. Capgemini estimates that 60 percent of such programs – including ERP (SAP, Oracle, etc.), Web 2.0 and SOA initiatives – encounter rework following misunderstandings between project managers who write the specifications, and the engineers who build the programs. The announcement states, “The RDV is designed to help all parties get the software right the first time” – sound familiar? Absolutely, because Capgemini and iRise both believe that people, process and technology are required to really bring the full benefits of getting software right the first time.
Corey Glickman, the national leader for the Capgemini RDV Lab,
has been a champion for 
simulation and visualization for years
and an iRise user, speaking on different aspects at iRise User Conferences and interviews. Corey recently stated, “The RDV lets designers substitute images for nouns, animation for verbs, and a full–blown simulation for a phone book of instructions.” Is visualization really is the new language for designing software? I think Corey hit it right on the mark.
Capgemini has really taken the lead among global system integrators in piloting this effort years ago and now launching capabilities nationwide. For example, last year I presented Capgemini with the iRise Alliance Advantage Partner of the Year award for its substantial work (among other things) with one of our large manufacturing customers. Though the market for simulation is still young and in the evangelism stage, with the help of Capgemini, more companies will experience the benefits of visualization and share their success.
I look forward to sharing more examples of iRise alliance partners adopting the new language for designing software.
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iRise has expanded its use into the area of packaged applications that include SAP, Oracle, Siebel, PeopleSoft and many other package applications.
I recently presented the value of simulating iRise for SAP along with Melanie Lucas, iRise Enterprise Solutions Manager at the 2007 Partner Summit, pre-cursor to the iRise Fusion 07 User Conference. Its important to recognize the value of simulation beyond custom applications and how similar benefits are achievable with packaged applications like SAP.
Validating requirements for SAP projects is never easy. Packaged software implementations suffer the same poor requirements challenges that custom applications do, the difference is much of the package is already defined. SAP tools exist to prototype SAP applications; however, the SAP tools are cumbersome to rapidly create and iterate with stakeholders and many implementations today are heavily customized and/or heavily integrated, making it very difficult to adapt the SAP tools to vizualize truly what the business has in mind.
Using iRise, Melanie showed how a business analyst can rapidly simulate the SAP screens, data and logic in order to validate requirements quickly and iterate often with stakeholders and IT in order to define the application and get alignment on the end-state. The iDoc is available on Catalyze to iRise customers & partners. Melanie gave examples of what SAP implementations benefit most from simulation:
- SAP CRM - typically involves heavy customization and multiple interfaces to other customer systems
- SAP SCM / Procurement - typically involves heavy customization, often a supplier portal, and integration to back office systems
- SAP HR Portal - HR systems benefit from heavy user validation and review
- Composite Applications using NetWeaver - SAP’s custom development platform, NetWeaver, is being used to create new, custom, “composite” applications that leverage existing SAP modules
Simulating the SAP system provides a way to rapidly assemble a working, functional prototype that can be reviewed and experienced (literally) by stakeholders and IT, with rapid, easy iterations on the prototype to quickly extract and validate the right requirements. Key stakeholders, end-users, analysts and SAP developers can all agree on the right model and requirements ahead of configuring, customizing, developing or integrating the live SAP system. During the presentation, I highlighted some of the benefits from simulating an SAP system:
- Requirements are validated before development/configuration starts
- Rework and mid-stream requirements changes are significantly reduced (by up to 70%)
- SAP simulations (masters, templates, models) can be re-used for greater efficiency in later projects
- Adoption of the system rollout is significantly higher, due to involving and confirming with more stakeholders and end-users upfront
A majority of simulations for SAP have been done by our alliance partners like Capgemini, Accenture and Deloitte – especially since they have the deep SAP expertise. Capgemini, for example, has gone much further and simulated many different SAP modules like CRM, Service Management, Call Center, HR, Supply Chain, etc. – creating an extensive asset library that they can offer to clients as a means to better validate client requirements and a jumpstart to getting started with the SAP blueprint phase. Its proven successful at many clients and demonstrates their deep expertise with SAP.
I am always interested to hear about more simulations involving packaged applications, including SAP.
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At this year’s 2007 iRise Partner Summit in Las Vegas, pre-cursor to the Fusion 07 User Conference, iRise proudly 
awarded OneSpring the 2007 Partner of the Year! I gave out the award along with Emmet B. Keeffe, CEO & Co-Founder, during the Partner Summit Reception on Wednesday night (photo here). The award recognizes OneSpring for an outstanding year in helping to introduce iRise and the benefits of simulation to several large customers while providing application definition consulting services to assist companies in achieving the these benefits.
OneSpring was started just 2 years ago by two innovative people, Scott McDowell and Jason Moccia, on the foundation of doing application definition better than anyone else. OneSpring started out as an Select level in the iRise Alliance Advantage program and has grown significantly and advanced in the program every year, reaching the highest alliance level (Strategic) this year. OneSpring has worked with many F500 iRise customers, including Delta, Intercontinental Hotels and Sprint and has adopted iRise as its primary solution for defining business applications. I have found that OneSpring has made a name for itself within the iRise community through sponsoring and speaking at both the 2006 and 2007 user conferences (see OneSpring presentation here) and maintaining the first ever iRise Blog at www.iriseonline.com.
Summary of all the 2007 iRise Alliance Advantage Partner Awards:
- Partner of the Year: OneSpring
- Partner Pipeline Development Award: Deloitte
- Partner Marketing Award: IBM Rational
- Partner Enablement Award: Xede Consulting
Please join me in congratulating our 2007 Partner Award winners!
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Sherrick Murdoff of iRise introduced Fusion ‘07, the 3rd annual partner summit today at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. The conference began with lots of positive news with Murdoff announcing double the attendance of customers and partners plus a 50% increase in iRise’s customer base.
Murdoff went on to thank iRise Alliance Partners for iRise’s success for which we expect we’ll see more of tomorrow when the two-day user conference begins. He thanked alliance partner for their contribution in being the source for many of iRise’s 30 success stories.
One of the issues that Murdoff stressed about iRise and application simulation is that it’s not about simply defining a Web site, but improving the entire lifecycle across the entire software development life cycle (SDLC). Might as well be the theme of this conference. So far, all the speakers today have hammered this point.
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