Press Release

IT Waste Prevention Act Passed By Senate Committee

Proposed bill spotlights need to fix endemic requirements issues facing IT projects

El Segundo, Calif. – November 12, 2008 – An important bill designed to prevent endemic waste surrounding federal government IT projects has passed a Senate committee vote.  The Information Technology Investment Oversight Enhancement and Waste Prevention Act (S. 3384) would require federal agencies to regularly report to Congress on significant shortfalls in the cost, schedule and performance of their IT programs. The legislation would also encourage better planning and ensure that officials are alerted soon after problems arise. This bill was passed by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on October 1st and now faces a full vote on the floor of the Senate.  A separate version of the Bill is also being considered by the House of Representatives.

Among other provisions, the proposed Bill requires projects that are over 40% off schedule or cost estimates to be reported directly to Congressional oversight committees.  At that point these distressed projects would have access to a small ‘strike force’ of experienced private and public sector IT experts that would focus on areas like earned value management, defining requirements and project management.

The full text of the bill can be found here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.3384:

“The time has come to bring best practices learned from years of experience in the private sector to publicly funded IT projects,” said Jim Flyzik, president of The Flyzik Group, a strategic business consulting practice based in Washington D.C.  “This Bill represents a giant leap forward in better management and oversight for taxpayer funded IT initiatives.”

The federal government regularly spends billions of taxpayer dollars on IT projects that have had a poor record of success, according to related testimony before members of the same Senate committee by Norm Brown, executive director for the Center for Program Transformation.   In a hearing on July 31, 2008 before the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security (a subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee), Mr. Brown stated; “Literally billions of taxpayer dollars go down the drain every year in both visible and invisible Information Technology (IT) acquisition waste. IT projects too often experience problems of cost explosions, schedule black-holes, performance disappearances, and large-scale train-wrecks—many caused by violating one or more fundamental laws of “IT” Physics.”

In testimony entitled “Off-Line and Off-Budget: The Dismal State of Federal Information Technology Planning” Mr. Brown outlined a prescription for fixing the problem that focused in part on the issue of eliciting, documenting and managing better requirements for federal IT projects.  From the testimony, Mr. Brown’s “Fifth Law of IT Physics” put requirements at the forefront of the problem:

“Fifth Law:  Unvalidated requirements pave the road to project failure.  Corollary: Test and validate requirements as early as possible before basing significant projects upon them; use pilots where possible before fully committing.

The full text of Mr. Brown’s testimony can be found here: http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/BrownTestimony.pdf

“For the first time in history, Congress is considering a Bill that includes means to improve project results,” stated Dean Terry, executive vice president of federal solutions for iRise.  “At iRise we are committed to bridging the communication gap between customers and suppliers of IT solutions.   Better project outcomes will benefit agencies, improve accountability and deliver enhanced services and access to citizens.”

Software Visualization

iRise offers a powerful way for businesses to quickly visualize and “test market” applications before a single line of code is written.   For the first time, business software definition professionals can validate what they need, and then communicate their ideas to others using visualizations that replicate the exact look, feel and behavior of the proposed solution, taking the guesswork out of application definition.  Just as computer-aided design (CAD) tools transformed the automotive, aerospace and semiconductor industries iRise is now transforming the global business application market.  

With thousands of projects completed successfully, the value of visualization has proven to be enormous for businesses in highly competitive markets:

• Investigate innovative ideas and get to market twice as fast;
• Eliminate 30% of project costs;
• Ensure success of global sourcing strategies; and,
• Improve customer experience.

iRise can be used to visualize any software that has a user interface: new Web applications, portals, enhancements to existing systems, customizations to packaged implementations and even mobile applications.

About iRise
iRise is the world’s leading provider of visualization software for business applications.    Visualization is quickly becoming a critical competitive advantage for businesses to more effectively communicate their needs to technology teams and give everyone involved the ability to fully experience applications before they are built.  Companies of all sizes like General Motors, UPS, Wachovia, Manpower, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and many others use iRise to “test drive” their applications before building, which accelerates time to revenue, improves customer experience, and drives costs down.  At iRise, our vision is that by 2020, all business software will be visualized before being built, the same way that every car, airplane, and building is visualized today.  Headquartered in El Segundo, Calif., iRise is backed by Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, and Deutsche Bank, and has sales offices across North America.

###

iRise is a registered trademark of iRise. All other companies and products mentioned are trademarks and property of their respective owners.