Regardless of whether RUP, Agile, Waterfall or whatever is used, if the customer requirements are wrong, then failure will result. I think our quest for the "perfect" process to solve this problem will never happen ...until application incubation is embraced within them.
In reality today, the real customer requirements are not flushed out until a beta is delivered to the customer. The problem is considerable money has already been spent to produce this beta since production is now in mid-stream. Why not deliver the beta in the requirements phase!
Simunicator enables the development of rapidly designed, deployable prototypes so customers can incubate their application in "real life" before they sign off to production. Design our prototypes using visual design editors for ease & speed or plug in real code for power & flexibility such as for AJAX, DOM and dynamic data. For example, our web site is a prototype designed in Simunicator now being incubated.
There's no better way for a customer to understand and communicate their needs exactly. And, there's no better way to communicate to the dev team what they need to build. Not to mention incubated Simunicator prototypes allow for customer feedback capture, fast "final" tweaks and generation of technical documentation. And your requirements phase is not any longer that it was before.
This incubation feature is the biggest differentiator in the prototyping & simulation market. Draw screens and lower bad requirements with other tools or incubate applications and eliminate bad requirements with Simunicator.
(Thanks to Patrick J. Kerpan who gave us the "application incubation" term after he designed and incubated a prototype using Simunicator)
Monday, October 1, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Bring BA's and Developer's closer
I just got off a demo with a BA who commented "they could care less about what happen's in development", they just needed to generate the requirements doc and move on. I thought to myself the chances of that project ending in success is unlikely.
BA's and developers have to work together if projects are to be successful. The simulation tool appears to be touted for BA's only and that is a mistake. Yes, communication between the end customer and BA is vital but the BA to developer communication is just as vital if the project is to be delivered with success.
Generally speaking, the situation is BA's prefer tools enabling them to visually create screen's or visual's to supplement the documentation that is sent to development. Developer's prefer tools where they can code and can have "unlimited" behavior since they do not want to be constrained to the tool environment.
Now in order to truly achieve this communication, especially with remote teams & customers, the tool must support web based interaction. Forcing users to email files, having to install software to view something and an inability to capture timely feedback are "features" you should avoid in this market.
Simunicator is focused on providing a communication medium for technical and non-technical people on the project team, not just one functional group. Our latest version with a new visual flow logic editor, enhanced screen editor and improved Use Case/Requirements reports were added for non-technies, and with enhanced coding support for techies to "click to code mode" to create not just high fidelity, but real fidelity protoypes and simulations.
BA's and developers have to work together if projects are to be successful. The simulation tool appears to be touted for BA's only and that is a mistake. Yes, communication between the end customer and BA is vital but the BA to developer communication is just as vital if the project is to be delivered with success.
Generally speaking, the situation is BA's prefer tools enabling them to visually create screen's or visual's to supplement the documentation that is sent to development. Developer's prefer tools where they can code and can have "unlimited" behavior since they do not want to be constrained to the tool environment.
Now in order to truly achieve this communication, especially with remote teams & customers, the tool must support web based interaction. Forcing users to email files, having to install software to view something and an inability to capture timely feedback are "features" you should avoid in this market.
Simunicator is focused on providing a communication medium for technical and non-technical people on the project team, not just one functional group. Our latest version with a new visual flow logic editor, enhanced screen editor and improved Use Case/Requirements reports were added for non-technies, and with enhanced coding support for techies to "click to code mode" to create not just high fidelity, but real fidelity protoypes and simulations.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Should Prototypes Be Throw Away, No!
No way - that’s a waste of work! This train of thought came from first generation prototyping where limited functionality was “hacked” together to give a minimal visible artifact to customers. But with a next generation technology like Simunication, the prototype can be a very powerful artifact just like any other artifact in your process.
I disagree that prototypes are for minimal functionality to get customer sign off then thrown away. Prototypes should be developed with the customer to a point where they can completely simulate their business processes with behavior and user interface. Then the prototype has many valuable uses beyond a reference for developers building the appliciation.
A Simunicator prototype, kept updated to mirror the application in the field, can be used for visualizing & brainstorming next versions, for driving new business with customers, as a place to go for up to date use cases & requirements, for understanding how and why a user requirement exists, for viewing past feedback, user training & test case development.
Our prototypes & simulations are “incubateable” and can be deployed as fully functional alpha's or beta's to get real life feedback. Imagine a customer calling up months after the application was delivered saying “we’d like to add a feature that does this”, you hang up the phone, modify thier up-to-date prototype and then have the feature simulated and available next day for the customer to review!
I disagree that prototypes are for minimal functionality to get customer sign off then thrown away. Prototypes should be developed with the customer to a point where they can completely simulate their business processes with behavior and user interface. Then the prototype has many valuable uses beyond a reference for developers building the appliciation.
A Simunicator prototype, kept updated to mirror the application in the field, can be used for visualizing & brainstorming next versions, for driving new business with customers, as a place to go for up to date use cases & requirements, for understanding how and why a user requirement exists, for viewing past feedback, user training & test case development.
Our prototypes & simulations are “incubateable” and can be deployed as fully functional alpha's or beta's to get real life feedback. Imagine a customer calling up months after the application was delivered saying “we’d like to add a feature that does this”, you hang up the phone, modify thier up-to-date prototype and then have the feature simulated and available next day for the customer to review!
Monday, June 18, 2007
Real prototyping, real results
Welcome to the first blog on Simunication. We’ve just launched a new
version of Simunicator and a new web site so let us know what you think.
Simunicator is now used by many customers who are getting very good results.
We thank these customers for overcoming the "issues" of a new product and
working with us to evolve the product to what it is today. We’ve been told
Simunicator "is a world beater", "revolutionized our business" and "the most
useful application every written". Admittedly we’ve also had those who had
difficulty with our early user interfaces.
Where we have the most success is amongst senior staff who have the
responsibility and appreciation of the full project delivery. They like
our web architecture and our approach of building prototypes from use cases
annotated with requirements & feedback. They like the flexibility and
power of being able to code a prototype exactly to specification.
Where we have the least success is from the non-technical wanting a drawing
tool to build wire frames with no coding. I think that’s too bad because we
have converted many non-technical people to Simunicator after they realized
that HTML and script is not that scary. They feel very empowered after they
overcome that hurdle.
Simunicator is a unique approach to prototyping that to me is real
prototyping. In minutes to hours you can have real, powerful prototypes
deployed globally for review without anyone having to install any software.
And we’ve seen from our customers that the results are real as well.
version of Simunicator and a new web site so let us know what you think.
Simunicator is now used by many customers who are getting very good results.
We thank these customers for overcoming the "issues" of a new product and
working with us to evolve the product to what it is today. We’ve been told
Simunicator "is a world beater", "revolutionized our business" and "the most
useful application every written". Admittedly we’ve also had those who had
difficulty with our early user interfaces.
Where we have the most success is amongst senior staff who have the
responsibility and appreciation of the full project delivery. They like
our web architecture and our approach of building prototypes from use cases
annotated with requirements & feedback. They like the flexibility and
power of being able to code a prototype exactly to specification.
Where we have the least success is from the non-technical wanting a drawing
tool to build wire frames with no coding. I think that’s too bad because we
have converted many non-technical people to Simunicator after they realized
that HTML and script is not that scary. They feel very empowered after they
overcome that hurdle.
Simunicator is a unique approach to prototyping that to me is real
prototyping. In minutes to hours you can have real, powerful prototypes
deployed globally for review without anyone having to install any software.
And we’ve seen from our customers that the results are real as well.
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