How often does one hear the old cliché; "A picture is worth a thousand words?" First American Title Insurance - Information Technology Group put this proverb to the test. Faced with long software development lifecycles, less efficient software analysis and design, missed requirements and high project costs, the project fulfillment group at First American needed to find an application definition solution that combined the relevance of pictures with the context of words and dynamic nature of software interaction.

Designing and delivering a superior customer experience is often challenging. Achieving great design is many times a balancing act with other factors like business requirements, project delivery timelines, resources and accessibility to the user population. At Delta Air Lines the usability and design teams get involved with external projects like airport check-in kiosks as well as internally-facing applications like company portals. All of these projects require close collaboration between business analysts and designers to deliver outstanding outcomes. Carol Kilpatrick is a customer experience usability and design leader at Delta. Drawing from real-life experiences at the airline, Carol will relate lessons learned and best practices for how to integrate usability practice and good design principles with the latest in visualization technology and process.

Many companies invest in Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) packaged applications as a strategy to speed delivery and drive lower cost for mission-critical software deployment. Unfortunately, these goals are rarely realized because most packaged software has to be customized before meeting the needs of the business. And getting everyone to agree on these customizations can be difficult, time consuming and costly. The hard fact is that many of these projects fail as a result. The good news is; there's a better way. This Web seminar will focus on the software visualization tools and methods that been successfully implemented at Northrop Grumman as a strategy to combat these issues.

This Web seminar is a must-see for anyone that is faced with extending enterprise applications like SAP and Oracle.  Taking advantage of new and powerful capabilities being offered from SAP and Oracle can be challenging.  The ability to quickly visualize and validate extensions to these applications with business stakeholders and users prior to expensive investments in coding is essential to ensure the right project outcomes. This session will focus on the use of a Rapid Design & Visualization approach to achieving this goal; showing how to speed up agreement on business needs, while managing risk and reducing rework typically experienced during an ERP implementation.

Delivering rock solid business applications is even more challenging for business analysts in the health care field.  Not only is it difficult to get quality time with stakeholders, but if systems do not work as intended, people’s lives could be at stake.  The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has met these challenges by adopting visualization as a strategy to get to the right answers faster and with more reliability.   Using a rapid, iterative definition approach, the BAs at M.D. Anderson involve stakeholders in an innovative new process for eliciting and refining requirements for a comprehensive Electronic Medical Record (EMR) application suite.   This Web seminar is must-see for business analysts interested in best practices from one of the world’s leading healthcare institutions. 

It’s no secret that business analysts often get frustrated with the process of getting business and IT on the same page when eliciting and documenting requirements for software projects. Let’s face it, text specifications, static screen shots and use case diagrams are often the root cause for confusion, not understanding. The result for many projects is delay, overtime and cost overruns. But getting everyone on the same page doesn’t have to be so difficult. Visualization is a new technique that is catching on fast. By giving everyone the ability to quickly experience applications before they’re built, the business analyst becomes empowered to accelerate agreement and get projects done on time, on budget and with all the features needed by the business.

More companies bet their business on SAP than any other application solution. At the beginning of many SAP projects, the initial goal is to implement SAP "out of the box" in order to avoid costly extensions. Inevitably, gaps emerge during the blueprint phase of these projects and SAP must be extended in order to meet the needs of the business. Documenting business needs with text, use cases and static screen shots often leads to delay and cost overruns.

"We just completed in two days what would normally take us five months."
- Large defense contractor

iRise for SAP is the world’s only solution for visualizing and fully experiencing extensions to SAP before coding, which cuts project cost, accelerates delivery and takes the risk out of global sourcing for getting mission-critical SAP applications delivered.

"We sent the simulation to our developers in China and never heard from them again."
- Large semiconductor company

Many teams jump straight to defining requirements without really understanding the context for the solution and the business problems that need to be solved. To help provide better solutions, Kurt Bittner provides a webcast where you will discover the issues associated with problem identification, analysis and explore how to better connect to traditional requirements approaches. Learn how to attain a real understanding of the needs of stakeholders and examine the desired outcomes for defining software requirements. This presentation uses a consistent example throughout to clearly explain techniques that can be used by any team to improve their understanding of the real needs of stakeholders. The result is fewer false starts and improved quality of delivered applications.

Don't miss this valuable online web seminar sponsored by iRise and featuring one of the industry's leading experts improving the software development process: Ivar Jacobson International. Ivar Jacobson International provides first class services that include training and mentoring, providing practical help to organizations that wish to improve their software development process. Leading the team is Dr. Ivar Jacobson, who is a father of components and component architecture, use cases, modern business engineering, the Unified Modeling Language and the Unified Process.

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.

There is a fundamental shift taking place in global corporations from implementation to design. Business is under increasing pressure to leverage innovation as a competitive tool to achieve agility and growth. It's less important how or where to build things; it's more important to understand what to build. This change affects nearly every industry across the globe.

Duration: 16:31 minutes

Innovation Featuring Gary Beach, Publisher of CIO Magazine and Mitch Bishop, Chief Marketing Officer at iRise

iRise commissioned its first annual survey of line of business (LOB) executives in March 2006, which was conducted by independent research firm Decipher. A total of 150 LOB executives that own at least a $50M business within organizations with revenues of at least $500M completed the survey.

There is a fundamental shift taking place in global corporations - a shift in focus from implementation to design. Business is under increasing pressure to leverage innovation as a competitive tool to achieve agility and growth. It's becoming less important how or where to build things; it's becoming more important to understand what to build in the first place. This sea-change is affecting nearly every industry across the globe.

This podcast about innovation features Gary Beach, publisher of CIO magazine and Mitch Bishop, chief marketing officer at iRise. This discussion should be required listening for business and IT executives responsible for delivering innovative business solutions to market on time, on budget and with all the features demanded by customers.

Using an interview discussion format, Gary and Mitch address:

• The case for innovation - why it matters
• How other industries have become design driven
• Common obstacles to change
• How to instill a culture of innovation
• How simulation can drive innovation
• Where are we headed? The future of design driven organizations

Duration: 16:32 minutes

Line of Business Executives Reveals Stifled Innovation Due to Poor Communication with IT

iRise commissioned its first annual survey of line of business (LOB) executives in March 2006, which was conducted by independent research firm Decipher. A total of 150 LOB executives that own at least a $50M business within organizations with revenues of at least $500M completed the survey.

This first of its kind survey of U.S.-based business executives found that a staggering 94% view the systems delivered by IT as critical to the success of their business plans, yet 80% have experienced delays in getting to market, with miscommunication with IT cited as the leading cause. Fully 74% believe there’s a communication gap between business and IT that is crippling their ability to get mission-critical business systems to market on time. Nine out of ten would like to communicate with IT using easy-to-understand, interactive simulations rather than static text requirements.

Regarding the delivery of new business systems, the survey revealed:

• 52% said new business systems get delivered with missing features;
• 60% of respondents stated that they budget for project delays
• 83% budget for cost over-runs
• 90% indicated that delivering projects faster to market would be an important factor in their competitive advantage and cost control.

This podcast records a conversation between Rob O’Reagan, former editor in chief of CMO magazine and Mitch Bishop, CMO of iRise as they discuss the implications of the survey results on innovation and how to leverage visual simulation to drive more predictable business results.

Duration: 14:11 minutes