ThoughtWireThoughtWireWhen 2 + 1 = 1Stephen Owenshttp://www.thoughtwire.com/c/blogs/find_entry?entryId=365572013-05-13T20:02:39Z2013-05-13T19:54:56Z<p class="firstPara">
I had an absolutely great customer question last week that I thought deserved to be repeated and answered publicly. We were talking to this customer about the complexity they face trying to work across two separate applications on the same set of information. In the workshop there was a mixed group of folk, some of them had seen the ThoughtWire demos and some hadn't. When we started discussing the project goals and the workshop agenda one of the participants who hadn't seen ThoughtWire yet asked a really good question. I'll paraphrase here:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
"Our problem is that we have two applications that don't work together. People now have to duplicate actions in multiple environments, often in subtly different ways. I don't understand how adding a third application, ThoughtWire, helps with that."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
The answer gets to the core of how the ThoughtWire Agent works to help people be more effective trying to use multiple existing systems. In presentations, I often talk about a spectrum of possible user experiences with the ThoughtWire platform. At one extreme is an interface that is entirely generated by the ThoughtWire UxP user experience layer. In this model the user is interacting directly with a new user interface and it is indeed adding something new. At the other extreme is a new user experience that doesn't visually differ from what the user is already doing. They continue to work with their existing applications as they always have but with less manual work required to make those applications work together. That experience is a bit foreign to most people and so requires a little explanation.</p>
<p>
<img alt="" src="http://www.thoughtwire.com/image/image_gallery?uuid=b08e8820-6be5-46f3-9366-536dfb170611&groupId=10608&t=1368475115272" style="width: 325px; height: 195px; float: right;" />As a simple example imagine working with a sales application and an accounting application. The workflow to create a new order without ThoughtWire might be to open the sales application and search for the customer. Now switch to the accounting application and look up the customer using the customer identifier from the sales application to ensure they don't have any unpaid invoices. Then switch back to the sales application and create a new order for that customer. Two application switches and some copying and pasting required to get the job done. Assume that the person performing this task has a fair amount of experience working with the sales application, they spend most of their day using it and are pretty comfortable.</p>
<p>
<img alt="" src="http://www.thoughtwire.com/image/image_gallery?uuid=b9703c1e-6ef4-49ff-8d90-b24cf872c327&groupId=10608&t=1368475109492" style="width: 325px; height: 195px; float: left;padding-right:10px;" />Adding ThoughtWire as a third visible application would just introduce more training and complexity. Instead the ThoughtWire Agent can be configured to notice whenever a new customer is selected in the sales application and look up that customer automatically in the accounting application and put it into shared context. Using that information ThoughtWire UxP can provide a simple notification within the sales application about the payment status of the customer. The ThoughtWire Agent's ability to work on the user's behalf supports a better user experience with lower complexity.</p>
<p>
The best way to take advantage of ThoughtWire UxP depends on the particular requirement. In the case we were looking at last week it was clear that the ThoughtWire platform should get out of the way visually and just help people to use the applications they already know. In some cases there's a good reason to want a modernized user interface, possibly to present it on a mobile device or to aggregate information from a number of other sources and applications. Each story we encounter is unique, but the common thread is the desire for a simpler more unified experience with richer context.</p>
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Can't resist <a href="http://www.i-programmer.info/news/149-security/5823-open-source-homomorphic-cryptography.html">posting this link</a> to an article about an initial implementation of homomorphic encryption. As a company deeply interested in the privacy and security of our user's data this could be important for the future. I'll be interested to see how the performance turns out.</p>
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With the recent explosion of M&A and investment activity in the M2M / API space (Mashery, Layer 7 and Programmable Web to name a few), I thought I would add another point of reference to the discussion. The explosion of simple APIs over the last year is great news! These new APIs are exposing vast amounts of new functionality and data on the Internet and the trend is heading into the enterprise as well. With an estimated 30,000+ public APIs in play, the next point of discussion moves to how we can turn all of this into direct value to end users.</p>
<p>
When we founded ThoughtWire in 2009 we set out to create a new layer in the stack that would help interconnect end users with the systems and data they need to get their job done. Our intelligent personal agent technology sits right in the intersection of advancements in Digital Identity, APIs and traditional enterprise applications. Our platform provides identified users with their own dedicated "digital agent" to manage their affairs across all of the systems that they use.</p>
<p>
Adding an identity bound reasoning and workflow management layer brings the world of M2M to life. We call this Human to Machine to Machine (H2-M2M). Our dynamic cross platform user experience layer makes it easy to turn all of the data and services into web, portal or mobile applications in a snap. What an exciting time to be in this space.</p>
<p>
Watch for more info on the release of version 1.2 of ThoughtWire over the next week!</p>
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</div>Michael Monteith2013-05-02T13:01:09ZReflections on the true cost of Human MiddlewareMichael Monteithhttp://www.thoughtwire.com/c/blogs/find_entry?entryId=353092013-04-25T17:07:38Z2013-04-25T17:00:50Z<p class="firstPara">
The human middleware problem we've been blogging about is absolutely everywhere. As I travel from coast to coast talking to business and IT leaders I am struck by the prevalence and magnitude of the problem and the inherent opportunity.</p>
<p>
Ask any employee in your company to show you the most painful part of their work that involves using more than one screen. Get them to show you what it takes to get their job done. Now do the math... How many times per day / month / year does the situation play out? What impact does it have on your business?</p>
<p>
Whether your organization measures the impact in dollars and cents, regulatory compliance, customer satisfaction, quality of care or even lives saved, the cost of your human middleware is probably more than you can afford.</p>
<p>
ThoughtWire reframes the problem in a way that makes it solvable. We built our platform from the ground up to make it simple, quick and cost effective to solve these types of problems. We are relentless in our pursuit to restore balance - technology working for people, not the other way around!</p>
<p>
How much does your human middleware cost and what is the fully loaded cost of inaction?</p>
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</div>Michael Monteith2013-04-25T17:00:50ZFocus on the Problem, Not the Yak...Stephen Owenshttp://www.thoughtwire.com/c/blogs/find_entry?entryId=351082013-04-22T19:27:54Z2013-04-22T18:20:38Z<p class="firstPara">
When ThoughtWire engages with a customer one of our key promises is that we'll work to deliver value quickly. In many of our projects it takes only a small number of weeks to define and build a custom application. That may not sound that impressive until you realize that we reuse existing customer assets like databases, applications, web apps, etc, and we create a completely re-imagined user experience. There's a lot of great technology we bring to bear on the problem but just as important is our focus on the problem at hand and our utter rejection of Yak shaving.</p>
<div>
<figure style="margin:0;padding:0;">
<img alt="" src="http://www.thoughtwire.com/image/image_gallery?uuid=09706392-8017-47a3-a94b-aa52dfb8d543&groupId=10608&t=1366655797651" style="width: 167px; height: 249px; margin:10px 0px 0px 10px;float:right;" /></figure>
<p>
Yeah, that's a plastic shaved Yak action figure there. The message this action figure is screaming at you is <a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/03/dont_shave_that.html" target="_blank">DON'T SHAVE THE YAK</a>!</p>
<figcaption style="margin-left:10px;float:right;width:170px;clear:right;font-size:80%;">Photo from: The Action Figure Archive (http://figure-archive.net/item.aspx?itemID=49659)</figcaption></div>
<p>
<span style="line-height: 1.7;">How often have you heard an exchange something like this:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p>
<i>'We really need to help those poor people in department X. They have clients screaming at them all day because their process takes too many steps while the customer waits on the phone.'</i></p>
<p>
<i>'Yes, it would be great to help, and I sympathize with the customer's pain. You know that's just one of that type of problem though? Actually a number of the systems they use are out of date and can't really be upgraded because we don't have the budget right now and it would be too disruptive to make the transition anyway. I think we should take an overall view of the problem. We need a new strategy to replace core systems and I think that has to start with looking at our infrastructure, or maybe our hosting model. Let's think about whether we should be part of the new API driven ecosystem that's growing in the cloud or whether an SOA approach is more closely aligned with.... '</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>
At this point you can imagine the passionate discussion about strategy, architecture, IT delivery models and just about everything but the issue that started the discussion. Yet another poor doomed business process that can't be improved quite yet but will be focused on real soon, once some key technical issues are resolved. All too frequently the solution to a client problem turns into a discussion of technology. Too often when a client comes looking for help the conversation drifts into areas like the correct SOA platform to use, database performance considerations, application compatibility matrices, and completely loses track of the original objective.</p>
<p>
Knowing the line where those discussions cross over into Yak Shaving can be hard, although watching the client's face for signs of boredom or frustration can help. One of the ways that we do it at ThoughtWire is by ruthlessly time boxing all solutions into two week sprints and ensuring that we deliver something the client values every time. That helps really focus our effort on what matters; delivering value directly to the end user. Lengthy technical digressions are pretty much eliminated because they can't deliver value within that time box.</p>
<p>
It is important to dive into technical discussions only when required to deliver value. Clients really want to talk about their problem, whether that's providing better care to patients or processing an order faster. Letting the customer drive the discussion and prioritize the important work is a great discipline that is pretty much guaranteed to at least drastically reduce the yak shaving. The ThoughtWire UxP platform supports that value driven approach by enabling rapid iterations that show value every time; just as importantly, our people ensure that delivering client value is their focus on every engagement.</p>
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The Conference Board of Canada (amongst others) produces reports annually regarding productivity. <a href="http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/details/economy/measuring-productivity-canada.aspx" target="_blank">Their report </a> focuses on contrasting the productivity of the leading nations around the globe in terms of Output per Hours Worked. In information intensive industries the role of information technology is undeniably linked both positively and negatively to workforce productivity.</p>
<p>
For decades the information technology industry has been producing solutions focused on delivering monolithic application suites (CRM, ERP, MRP), systems integration, business process automation and now Big Data. Each of these types of solutions has their merits but they come at the problem from the perspective of the entire enterprise or from an IT systems point of view.</p>
<p>
At ThoughtWire, we believe the best way to improve productivity is to shift this focus from systems and processes to individual users and the tasks they perform and to use technology to help them get their jobs done more efficiently and effectively. How many different systems or screens do your employees have to use to do their jobs? In many of the large organizations we've spoken with the total number of discrete applications have ranged from hundreds to thousands - and that doesn't count the number of spreadsheets or personal databases that people have built to solve problems on their own.</p>
<p>
When we rely on our people to fill in the gaps between these myriads of systems and data we have inadvertently turned them into "Human Middleware". According to Mark MacDonald from the Gartner Group:</p>
<blockquote>
<i>"Human middleware is a silent killer of performance, responsibility and effectiveness."</i></blockquote>
<p>
(You can read <a href="http://blogs.gartner.com/mark_mcdonald/2012/03/02/find-your-human-middleware/" target="_blank">Mark's full post here</a>).</p>
<p>
Your Human Middleware is the single largest source of untapped productivity in your organization and we built ThoughtWire UxP to help unlock the full potential of your most important assets – your people.</p>
<h3>
Human / Computer cooperation is the key.</h3>
<p>
People are really good at unstructured problem solving, using their skills, experience and intuition. Computers are really good at automating predictable / routine processes as well as processing vast amounts of data and consistently applying rules. The symbiosis that comes from Human / Computer cooperation is the key to driving real workforce productivity because it focuses on improving people's effectiveness.</p>
<p>
Human / Computer cooperation is the foundation upon which we built ThoughtWire. Over the coming weeks we will be releasing version 1.2 of our platform and we'll be blogging a lot more about how our Smart Personal Agent helps people work more productively by automating a lot of the repetitive work that wastes their time. We believe that people are the "first mile" of value creation in the enterprise, not a "last mile" obstacle for your IT systems. We need to make technology work for people, not the other way around.</p>
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</div>Michael Monteith2013-04-18T13:45:14ZAll your languages are belong to usStephen Owenshttp://www.thoughtwire.com/c/blogs/find_entry?entryId=340772013-04-05T13:49:46Z2013-04-05T12:59:52Z<p>
<img alt="" src="http://www.thoughtwire.com/image/image_gallery?uuid=b27edbfa-9b11-4fea-b329-fb6c3d4eef28&groupId=10608&t=1365169466733" style="width: 306px; height: 237px; float: right;" />Great <a href="http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/the-quiet-revolution-in-programming/240152206" target="_blank">post over on the Dr. Dobb's</a> site about a fundamental shift in programming that we're definitely seeing here at ThoughtWire. I started out when a single language programmer was very nearly a tautology and now it is increasingly a rarity. Knowing multiple programming languages used to only be useful across different projects and now nearly all projects involve more than one. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this article to me is the implication that the division of effort isn't breaking down along language lines but continuing to follow domain concerns.</p>
<blockquote>
<i>"Rather, the traditional division of labor along domains appears to be the continuing norm."</i></blockquote>
<p>
I think that says a lot about the relative importance of technical fluency and domain knowledge. The ThoughtWire platform has to work on a variety of devices and at various levels within the system from the client to the server, so we end up dealing with many languages. Individual developers' proficiency with a particular language has, for us, turned out to be less important than their understanding of the problem domain. This will certainly make for interesting challenges for new programmers and for the universities and colleges that train them.</p>
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At ThoughtWire, we believe that a great user experience cannot be created without open feedback from, well, end users. We have been fortunate to work with some amazing clients and with their trust, have turned many important decisions about user experience over to their end users. Surprisingly, users are not always accustomed to having their voices heard.</p>
<p>
We are continuously improving our agile process when working with clients. Recently in our workshops, where there is no boss and everyone is equal, we have been experimenting with empowering individuals as much as possible. To promote an open conversation centered on user experience we have introduced a "safe" word.</p>
<p>
First a little background. If you are using an agile process with your team you may be familiar with the terms Chicken and Pig. See <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicken_and_the_Pig" target="_blank">Wikipidea</a> for the full story. In an agile project, just like at the breakfast table, chickens contribute, but pigs are all in. In a workshop we have pigs (end users and business stakeholders) and chickens (executive sponsors, technical staff), but we want to make sure the pigs aren't afraid of being eaten by the chickens. The analogy doesn't completely fit but stay with me...</p>
<p>
<img alt="Bunny!" src="http://www.thoughtwire.com/image/image_gallery?uuid=10166837-59d0-4d8a-90f7-ed043777bc57&groupId=10156&t=1364476725911" style="width: 182px; height: 186px; float: right;" />When a conversation falls into a rabbit hole like "legacy system connectivity" or "corporate governance" the end users have the power to say BUNNY! and hop out of the rabbit hole. Bunny is their safe word and lets them steer the conversation back to what is important. Systems, governance and other business risks are important discussions that have a place in technical workshops or break out meetings.</p>
<p>
So the next time a sprint planning meeting loses focus, say BUNNY! and get the team hopping into action. Happy Easter!</p>
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When we have the opportunity to engage with end users in one of our workshops, we often hear them express pain about the data they need but can't get, and pride about the data they were able to find put to use.</p>
<p>
<img alt="Useful Data" src="http://www.thoughtwire.com/image/image_gallery?uuid=a9abc686-680d-44b8-a8f3-261b276f6388&groupId=10156&t=1364475698970" style="width: 350px; height: 272px; float: right;" /> Why are users proud of this useful data? In most companies it is hard for someone to find the right data and put it to use.</p>
<p>
Often data is hidden in big data stores or a mainframe that requires training, experience and ingenuity to access. Some data is secured so tightly that it takes approval and complicated processes to uncover. Once the user finds the data, it may not be obvious because it is recorded in cryptic business terms used in the person's company in 1983, twenty years before they were hired.</p>
<p>
The person is proud because they put this data to use and satisfied a customer. When working with legacy software so much of a user's experience is cluttered with un-useful data. Do they need to see a screen overflowing with 100 pieces of data, when the customer has only asked, "When will my order be delivered?"</p>
<p>
To paraphrase Stephen Owens in his post on <a href="http://www.thoughtwire.com/web/stephen/home/-/blogs/useful-context">useful context</a>: Not all data is useful data; much of it is just noise. At ThoughtWire we believe the usefulness of data is greatly enhanced by context. Stephen has thoroughly covered the concept in his blog series on context.</p>
<p>
Much of the success of a knowledge worker in a company depends on useful data. Along the path to making data useful there are several factors (or obstacles) to consider. Useful data considerations:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://www.thoughtwire.com/web/stephen/home/-/blogs/useful-context">Contextual Data</a></li>
<li>
Meaningful Data</li>
<li>
Accessible Data</li>
<li>
Flexible Data</li>
<li>
Trustworthy Data (accurate data)</li>
<li>
Referenceable Data (linkable data)</li>
<li>
NOT Big Data</li>
</ul>
<p>
Over my next few posts, I'll explore each of these data challenges in more detail and talk about how ThoughtWire enables useful data.</p>
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I was going to let <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/15/the-future-of-javascript/" target="_blank">this post</a> slide on by after I saw it on TechCrunch but then it got some play on LinkedIn news as well so I figure lots of folks, including developers, are going to read it. I think that Péter Halácsy has some decent points but I can't let this statement just hang out there:</p>
<p>
"Once your codebase reaches hundreds of thousands of lines of code, and it's all written in a dynamic language such as JavaScript, development velocity starts to suffer. <b>If you make modifications to one side of your codebase, there's no way to know if that is going to introduce bugs somewhere else without actually running your application.</b> Testing can only get you so far; there are only so many contingencies that you can anticipate. The result is either more buggy software or longer release cycles."</p>
<p>
The bolding in the above is mine but the line stood out like that when I read it, like there was a spotlight shining on it. I don't think it's a good thing for software development as a discipline to have developers read statements like that and believe them. There are ways to understand and control side effects in your code and where the language makes it hard, as JavaScript does, it is our responsibility to push back and try to improve the state of the art. The post was largely about language design and performance but issues of maintainability and testability are above the level of language design. Language features can support or inhibit good software design and development practices but we can't give up because a particular language makes it hard.</p>
<p>
<img alt="" src="http://www.thoughtwire.com/image/image_gallery?uuid=f2c6eb2f-bec5-419e-ad2e-1696c196fba5&groupId=10608&t=1363891363496" style="width: 340px; height: 231px; float: right;" />Software complexity appears to have no upper limit, however people's ability to fully understand complex systems has a limit that appears to have been fixed by evolution a long time ago. Unfortunately there appears to have been no evolutionary advantage to remembering dozens of branched paths across a deep call stack while holding hundreds of possible side effects in mind at the same time. That type of deep thought would have gotten our ancestors eaten by a passing grizzly, giving the advantage to those members of the species distractible enough to notice each passing butterfly.</p>
<p>
All of that is to say that developers need a lot of discipline to reduce the complexity to a level that we can manage so that we can make reasonable assertions about the quality of our software. There are a raft of good practices out there although many of them were created for non-dynamic languages: the <a href="http://butunclebob.com/ArticleS.UncleBob.PrinciplesOfOod" target="_blank">SOLID principles</a>, test driven development or its offshoot <a href="http://dannorth.net/introducing-bdd/" target="_blank">behaviour driven development</a> (which we use here at ThoughtWire), automated acceptance tests, continuous delivery practices, etc. At Thoughtwire we use a lot of these principles and a lot of tooling to ensure that our quality stays high and that we can ensure we understand and minimize the impact of changes. The list goes on and the point of this post isn't to suggest the right way to fix the problem, but to encourage developers to continue to strive against entropy and work to ensure order in their corner of the universe.</p>
<p>
<i>Note that this shouldn't be taken as a criticism of Péter, or that I'm suggesting that he doesn't know about these ideas or that they would solve his problems. Programming is hard, complexity is real and there really aren't any silver bullets, but in the face of that complexity we have tools and we should have hope.</i></p>
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<a class="dsq-brlink" href="http://disqus.com">comments powered by <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span></a></p>Stephen Owens2013-03-21T13:06:47ZJava GC OptimizationStephen Owenshttp://www.thoughtwire.com/c/blogs/find_entry?entryId=329762013-03-18T17:22:43Z2013-03-18T15:15:05Z<p>
Garbage collection, art or science? I've been staring at GC graphs for weeks now as the team here at ThoughtWire pound on our latest clustered release of the product and try to make it fail with various interesting load profiles. Watching the heap ascend to the heavens is like watching a mountain climber striving for the next peak, except that joy greets each fall from the cliff's edge as memory plummets back down. How far down? Did it return to where it started or is that just the slightest hint of an upturn? Sometimes the 'excitement' is almost too much and we can't bring ourselves to watch the live graph, opting instead to wait for the reruns shown in the full test report.</p>
<p>
<img alt="Java GC" src="http://www.thoughtwire.com/image/image_gallery?uuid=7d8dcf48-d3a2-4316-8262-24b71099141c&groupId=10608&t=1363626860338" style="width: 398px; height: 339px; float: right;" />Those of you considering computer science as a career will be happy to know that decades of watching graphs rise and fall, watching for even a single byte leak, await you. Those of you that have built interesting high performance Java applications can just nod sagely and hopefully feel some sense of empathy rather than <a href="http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-03/being-mean-girl-starts-crib">schadenfreude</a>. Our customers can rest secure knowing that we spend weeks stress testing new versions to ensure you have a great experience when you plug it in and start using it. Even the smallest log anomalies get analyzed, dissected, discussed, dissed, mocked and finally resolved. To the delight of our friends and relatives many of the team even recount the amusing anecdote of the 'intermittent pause issue caused by lock queuing during high concurrency', makes me smile just to think of it; but you probably had to be there to fully appreciate it.</p>
<p>
All of this hard work has a happy outcome as our 1.2 release nears completion. Much of the positive outcome can be attributed to a really good book that I wanted to give proper credit. If you need performance from your Java applications buy <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Java-Performance-Charlie-Hunt/dp/0137142528">Java Performance</a> by Charlie Hunt and Binu John. Completely rocks, has a great plot, interesting characters and the denouement will haunt you for weeks leaving you feeling that you understand the world (or at least 'stop the world') just a little better.</p>
<p>
Happy tuning folks!</p>
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<a class="dsq-brlink" href="http://disqus.com">comments powered by <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span></a></p>Stephen Owens2013-03-18T15:15:05ZAgile is now mythic!Stephen Owenshttp://www.thoughtwire.com/c/blogs/find_entry?entryId=310812013-02-11T15:56:06Z2013-02-11T15:46:14Z<p>
There's a good post on <a href="http://agile.dzone.com/articles/7-agile-myths" target="_blank">7 Agile Myths</a> that is very worth a read; bonus, it's really short! A number of these are concerns that ThoughtWire customers have expressed in the past. </p>
<p>
<img alt="" src="http://www.thoughtwire.com/image/image_gallery?uuid=8a0cb913-de48-460c-b31a-c61720476b3d&groupId=10608&t=1360597584194" style="width: 191px; height: 156px; float: right;" />I think that the first myth about Agile meaning no documentation is one aspect of a broader myth that Agile and formalism of any kind don't mix. Agile enables the outcomes that are important to the people that need the deliverables. There is usually a strong focus on the working product being the most important outcome of an Agile project, but for enterprise customers, for example, there are good reasons why solid documentation or other formal work products can be an important outcome of a successful project. A good Agile team would identify that need in a story, just like any other project priority. Since Agile teams should always include direct representatives of the client, decisions about priorities are made within the full context of what matters to the client. The group would prioritize that work along with everything else being done on the project and schedule the work required to make it happen.</p>
<p>
Similarly a good Agile team would challenge the priority of each formal work product that isn't part of making a working product to ensure that it delivers value. The Agile manifesto item that values "Working software over comprehensive documentation" means that documentation doesn't get a free ride; it isn't automatically assumed that every project needs a high level of formalism to be successful. Each deliverable has to pull its weight in a project and it is up to the project team to ensure they understand the value of each deliverable and prioritize it properly and then do the right work.</p>
<p>
That's one of the hardest things about Agile adoption. One of its goals is to constantly challenge wrote policies and adapt the process to ensure the team is always delivering the most value. There are no easy pat answers, just a continuous feedback cycle that requires a solid understanding of the goals to make it work. Working that way requires discipline and focus. Working without a safety net can be a bit vertiginous, but the accomplishment is worth it.</p>
<p>
One small point of disagreement with the aforementioned 7 Agile Myths post; Agile <b>is</b> fast! It results in faster time to value, partly through smaller projects. See <a href="http://www.thoughtwire.com/web/dale/home/-/blogs">Dale Hall's posts</a> on that topic here.</p>
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<a class="dsq-brlink" href="http://disqus.com">comments powered by <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span></a></p>Stephen Owens2013-02-11T15:46:14ZAgile IT, Experimentation, Platform are key to Successful Invention and InnovationDale Hallhttp://www.thoughtwire.com/c/blogs/find_entry?entryId=309192013-02-07T16:36:37Z2013-02-07T15:38:56Z<p>
In my previous posts I talked about the <a href="http://www.thoughtwire.com/web/dale/home/-/blogs/29695">risks associated with massive IT</a> projects and how <a href="http://www.thoughtwire.com/web/dale/home/-/blogs/30417">smaller projects can mitigate those risks</a> and change the culture of project delivery within the enterprise. In this post I want to explore some of the benefits that come with that new culture.</p>
<p>
Enabling and supporting Agile projects within your organization is an opportunity for experimentation which can support invention and innovation in the enterprise. This was a theme that really resonated with me when I attended the Amazon Web Services conference in November and had the opportunity to hear the founder and CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos and the CTO of Amazon, Werner Vogels speak on a number of subjects. Their "fireside chat" is well worth a listen:</p>
<p style="text-align:center;margin:auto;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/O4MtQGRIIuA?feature=player_detailpage" width="480"></iframe></p>
<p>
Bezos states a few points that are very interesting with respect to enabling invention and innovation:</p>
<ul>
<li>
"if you have a willingness to fail then what you can do is you can ramp up your rate of experimentation. "</li>
<li>
"Successful invention is inventions that customers care about."</li>
<li>
"Successful invention if you want to do a lot of that, you basically have to increase your rate of experimentation"</li>
<li>
"If you double the number of experiments you do per year you're going to double your inventiveness."</li>
</ul>
<p>
If I can paraphrase some of the other points from the Amazon fireside chat, they went on to say that companies who wish to increase their rate of experimentation need to organize themselves to do so including things like their systems, people, process, and time. Bezos and Vogels suggested that organizations need enablers and platforms to help them increase their rate of experimentation by decreasing the amount of time necessary to carry out new projects or "experiments". Amazon is a very customer focused company and it has clearly had great success through enabling a high rate of experimentation to deliver new features to their customers.</p>
<p>
This notion of experimentation is very important to any enterprise that has a desire to be inventive and/or innovative. Experimentation in this context is essentially the ability to rapidly create and prove out new products or features very efficiently. Experimentation is dependent upon Agile development and delivery processes to be successful along with technology platforms that support rapid experimentation. Agile development and delivery processes are dependent upon streamlined and supportive architectural and project methodologies and effective procurement processes that do not introduce needless overhead or delay.</p>
<p>
I would suggest that investment in experimentation, <a href="http://www.thoughtwire.com/solutions/delivery">Agile project delivery</a>, and the right platform can have as large an impact when focused internally to enable your organization's workforce to be more effective as it can focused externally to support your customers. Platforms to enable experimentation such as AWS for compute capacity and <a href="http://www.thoughtwire.com/product">ThoughtWire UxP</a> to support the rapid configuration of user focused new products and services can change the game in IT services delivery.</p>
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<a class="dsq-brlink" href="http://disqus.com">comments powered by <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span></a></p>Dale Hall2013-02-07T15:38:56ZDon't throw it out, just rejuvenate it!Michael Monteithhttp://www.thoughtwire.com/c/blogs/find_entry?entryId=304502013-02-03T20:41:03Z2013-01-30T19:55:07Z<p>
Every IT group we've spoken to in the last year is looking at how they can accelerate innovation, meet the changing demands of their customers / employees and manage their shrinking budgets.</p>
<p>
<img alt="big comfy chair" src="http://www.thoughtwire.com/image/image_gallery?uuid=4be1befe-fed0-42e7-9501-5aa8ca160465&groupId=11838&t=1359576147136" style="width: 225px; height: 300px; float: right;" />In a recent discussion with the CIO from a large multi-national company we had a good laugh comparing legacy IT systems to the first piece of furniture either of us ever owned - "the comfy chair"!</p>
<p>
Have you ever faced the dilemma of having to throw out your favorite chair because it was "too old", "too ugly" or because it just didn't "fit in" with contemporary ideals? You probably fondly remember the day when you brought it home as well as all of the great moments in your life when it dutifully and comfortably just did its job! There was nothing technically "wrong" with it; it just didn't fit in anymore.</p>
<p>
Should you succumb to the pressure and just get rid of it? Do you give in to the allure of "new" and "more fashionable" alternatives or is there another way? What if you could keep it AND "modernize" at the same time? The good news is that you can - just recover it.</p>
<p>
The same thing can likely be said about your existing legacy IT systems. The competitive advantage that they once provided have quickly become a thing of the past. Your PC-era solutions just don't seem like a fit for the post-PC problems you face.</p>
<p>
Like my old "comfy chair" your existing systems and data can be rejuvenated and transformed. Modernizing your current systems will not only amplify their ROI, it will fundamentally change the way you look at your existing portfolio. Your employees and customers will thank you for their great "new" experiences and your balance sheet will be better off as a result.</p>
<p>
At ThoughtWire, we've made it a priority to give companies the tools they need to meet the modern challenges facing them while at the same time maximizing the ROI from their existing investments.</p>
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<a class="dsq-brlink" href="http://disqus.com">comments powered by <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span></a></p>Michael Monteith2013-01-30T19:55:07ZHow to avoid the risk (of massive IT projects)Dale Hallhttp://www.thoughtwire.com/c/blogs/find_entry?entryId=304172013-01-30T18:17:04Z2013-01-30T18:14:10Z<p>In my previous post I suggested that <a href="http://www.thoughtwire.com/web/dale/home/-/blogs/the-era-of-massive-it-projects-is-over">the era of massive IT projects is over</a>. The high cost and failure rate, the heavy architectural gating and design process; and the risk of mistakenly investing in obsolescence due to the rate of change in the IT landscape open a pit of despair for anyone evaluating these projects.</p>
<p>Given these challenges how can organizations deliver solutions more quickly and leverage evolving technology capabilities and service offerings? Most importantly how can we be more inventive and innovative? The answer is quite simple.</p>
<p>Organizations should focus on delivering value quickly through smaller, more manageable, less costly, and yet valuable projects that produce positive business impact. By making this paradigm shift a business can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Address the needs of smaller groups of business users whose needs generally get scoped out of the large big bang projects;
</li><li>Reduce risk dramatically in delivering any one project;
</li><li>Quickly identify and kill failing, or low value, projects (fail fast);
</li><li>Distribute IT investment across smaller projects to drive the business forward with rapid time to market;
</li><li>Reduce the amount of project and resource overhead in process and project management through Agile development and delivery methodology;
</li><li>Make project teams more accountable through regular and frequent product delivery;
</li><li>Increase agility by being able to deploy and re-deploy IT resources quickly to meet a specific need; and
</li><li>Accommodate for changes in market conditions by changing business priorities and rapidly re-deploying investment and resources.
</li>
</ul>
<p>By adjusting gating and procurement processes to align with Agile development and project delivery, government and large enterprise have the opportunity to invent and innovate. Smaller investments in a range of lower risk projects, within an enterprise IT portfolio, allow successful projects to be quickly identified and expanded. Decisions can be based on project results over a period of weeks and months, rather than the years it can take in the case of traditional large projects.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thoughtwire.com/product">ThoughtWire UxP</a> was designed to rapidly enable enterprises to build and run compelling and impactful enterprise grade business solutions. Leveraging the platform, organizations can deliver value to their stakeholders in weeks. I’m proud of what our platform enables, providing customers a new set of tools and enabling an Agile approach to project development and delivery that clearly aligns all the stakeholders across business and IT. In my next post I want to focus on enabling a culture of experimentation in your organization.</p>
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<a href="http://disqus.com" class="dsq-brlink">comments powered by <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span></a>Dale Hall2013-01-30T18:14:10ZThe Era of Massive IT Projects Is OverDale Hallhttp://www.thoughtwire.com/c/blogs/find_entry?entryId=296952013-01-30T18:22:55Z2013-01-23T20:04:56Z<p>
Throughout my career I have worked with large, complex organizations in both public and private sector. Regardless of industry the Information Technology (IT) needs of these large organizations are complex. Most large enterprises have a series of costly IT failures they can point to which never achieve their intended ROI or worse yet are cancelled in-flight before they or their benefits are ever realized. The larger the organizations, the larger the projects they seem to take on. As a result, over time these organizations will develop rigorous processes to help protect themselves from the IT failures of the past. The result tends to be a lengthy and arduous series of architectural gating; structured development processes (i.e. Waterfall, RUP); unnecessarily onerous procurement processes; and endless reviews and signoffs required to move projects forward.</p>
<div style=" float: right; width:300px;padding:0 10px;">
<img alt="" src="http://www.thoughtwire.com/image/image_gallery?uuid=60485145-b282-4347-ad91-88a3ecdc0b1a&groupId=11885&t=1359133748549" style="width: 300px; height: 419px; float: right;" /> <span style="font-size:90%;color:#999;">Data from: '<a href="http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mast2876/WP_2011_08_15.pdf" style="color:#999" target="_blank">Double Whammy - How ICT Projects are Fooled by Randomness and Screwed by Political Intent</a>', Alexander Budzier and Bent Flyvbjerg, University of Oxford 2011</span></div>
<p>
A severe negative consequence of all these measures is that smaller, more agile, and less complex IT projects often do not get buy-in to proceed. The processes to protect the organization from large IT project failures, such as gating and multi-layered business approvals, end up making smaller but potentially more inventive or innovative high-value projects seem too costly because of the process overhead involved in getting them delivered. IT departments in large enterprise and government have been structured to support the delivery of large projects and tend to follow very traditional SDLC methodology which aligns well to architectural gating and long procurement and approval processes. However this organizational structure and traditional methodologies stifle the ability of an organization to invent or innovate rapidly, or be agile in its use of IT as a business enabler and valuable contributor to bottom line growth or efficiency in the enterprise.</p>
<p>
Time and time again, we have all seen that large projects, and in particular large IT projects, fail at alarming rates. Just a few of the many reasons I have seen that contribute to the failure of large multi-year projects include:</p>
<ul>
<li>
Technical complexity as a result of the project size;</li>
<li>
Poor understanding and documentation of functional and non-functional requirements;</li>
<li>
Lack of end-user involvement throughout the project delivery;</li>
<li>
Cultural issues between delivery teams and within the organization;</li>
<li>
"Project Pile-on" or "Omnibus Project" (multiple initiatives get thrown into a project that is underway to circumvent process, but which may not be aligned with the core goal of the project);</li>
<li>
Change in the business or in the market while the multi-year project is in flight;</li>
<li>
Shortage of qualified project and technical resources to deliver;</li>
<li>
Inaccurate estimate of Adoption costs;</li>
<li>
Success or failure cannot be determined until after the entire project is delivered.</li>
</ul>
<p>
With the current and accelerating rate of change in technology related to innovations such as Cloud Computing, Everything as a Service (XaaS), mobility, etc., massive multi-year projects don't generally make sense anymore. The only reason that organizations invest in IT is to support their business and provide an advantage against competitors or to provide services more efficiently to the public. In today's world by the time a large company or government department can go through the process of:</p>
<ol>
<li>
Creating a business case;</li>
<li>
Documenting all requirements for the end-to-end solution;</li>
<li>
Following the gating and procurement processes;</li>
<li>
Choosing a vendor with a proposed solution;</li>
<li>
Negotiating a contract;</li>
<li>
Finally delivering the solution;</li>
</ol>
<p>
There is a very good chance the proposed solution will be obsolete or the requirements of what the business now needs have changed. Two to five years (or more) may have passed by waiting for this large project to be delivered. As we all know, time does not stand still and neither do market competitors. Public Sector may not need to deal with direct competition in most cases but it does need to deal with funding constraints and the public looking for more services to be delivered through technology assisted channels. Business and government no longer have the luxury of taking on these multi-year projects and the associated overhead in time, investment and resources these projects demand.</p>
<p>
In my <a href="http://www.thoughtwire.com/web/dale/home/-/blogs/how-to-avoid-the-risk-of-massive-it-projects">next post</a> I'll explore some alternatives to massive projects and show why your organization doesn't need to take on this level of risk.</p>
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<a class="dsq-brlink" href="http://disqus.com">comments powered by <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span></a></p>Dale Hall2013-01-23T20:04:56ZSkeuomorphic Scapegoat?Stephen Owenshttp://www.thoughtwire.com/c/blogs/find_entry?entryId=296692013-01-23T20:31:48Z2013-01-23T19:17:23Z<p>
<img alt="" src="http://www.thoughtwire.com/image/image_gallery?uuid=b27e655e-af42-4efb-9595-b549d5807e44&groupId=10608&t=1358970141829" style="width: 389px; height: 286px; float: right;" /></p>
<p>
As someone who is deeply interested in user interface I thought <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=apple-shouldnt-make-software-look-like-real-objects" target="_blank">this article</a> was an interesting take on one of the major movements in user interface design. In some follow-up reading on the topic I found a <a href="http://www.themachinestarts.com/read/2012-11-how-we-started-calling-visual-metaphors-skeuomorphs-why-apple-design-debate-mess" target="_blank">very good discussion</a> of the underlying issues and the problem with the current debate over possible design changes at Apple and other companies. If you’re going to read just one piece about the role of skeuomorphism I think that second article should be it.</p>
<p>
These articles are timely because there’s (always) a lively discussion going on inside ThoughtWire about the nature of user experience versus visual experience, where is the line between how something looks and how it performs? Are we allowed to try to ‘improve’ its look independently of how it works?</p>
<p>
The right discussion about design is, I think, always a discussion about comprehension and usability and delight. Do the users of your software understand what it does? Can they easily make use of it to accomplish their tasks and does it add some small measure of delight to their day? Real world metaphors and design language could either help achieve these goals or hurt them; as always, it depends. It depends on the project and the users and the skill of the designer and many other things. Design requires a subtle set of decisions and tradeoffs that I don’t think is helped by blanket proscriptions against the use of real world metaphors.</p>
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<a class="dsq-brlink" href="http://disqus.com">comments powered by <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span></a></p>Stephen Owens2013-01-23T19:17:23ZPeople PoweredStephen Owenshttp://www.thoughtwire.com/c/blogs/find_entry?entryId=292342013-04-22T18:17:24Z2013-01-14T22:06:22Z<p>
<a href="http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/20/movie-gadget-friday-brazil/" title="Engadget: Movie Gadget Friday: Brazil"><img alt="Terry Gilliam's Brazil: Cyborg Typewriter" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/02/typewriter-brazil.jpg" style="padding: 5px; float: right; height: 225px;" /></a>This is a <a href="http://engineering.twitter.com/2013/01/improving-twitter-search-with-real-time.html">fabulous article</a> showing how Twitter leverages the power of people to ensure relevance on searches for trending topics. This is a great example of the synergy possible between people and technology. Too often I think that solutions are unidimensional, we either put the whole load on people, or try for end to end automation and exclude people except as exception handlers after the fact. Fabulous and creative answers to hard problems are possible when people are included and they have access to tools that fit the task.</p>
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<a class="dsq-brlink" href="http://disqus.com">comments powered by <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span></a></p>Stephen Owens2013-01-14T22:06:22Z2012 Defining MomentJason O'Neillhttp://www.thoughtwire.com/c/blogs/find_entry?entryId=285112013-01-03T19:52:53Z2013-01-03T19:29:53Z<p>
As I look back on 2012 at ThoughtWire there are so many great experiences, but there is one defining moment that stands out. It was the moment I knew we were steering down the right path. When a company like ours imparts disruptive technology and processes, it is common to run into naysayers and fill people with fear.</p>
<blockquote>
"I hope they don't put this in my department!"<br />
"I bet that will cause me more work."<br />
"We don't need more computers."</blockquote>
<p>
These were just some of the comments that could be heard from a small group that had wandered by just within earshot as we were setting for a pilot software rollout. This was in a hospital setting where healthcare workers care more about improving patient care and safety than they do about doing their work on the latest gadget like an iPad.</p>
<p>
The defining moment was when one of the workers, who had never been directly involved in our workshops, adamantly defended the need for this new software.</p>
<blockquote>
"Don't worry, they designed it <em>with us</em> to help us", he said.</blockquote>
<p>
There was such enthusiasm from the core group of people we were working with in the hospital that news was spreading. It is rare to receive genuine, candid feedback that your process is working. In my experience this doesn't happen without an iterative process and close engagement from the real people who's jobs will benefit from change.</p>
<p>
Stay tuned in 2013 for more on our discovery workshops and agile process.</p>
<p>
<b>Happy New Year!</b></p>
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So that I remember for posterity I thought I’d capture a quick version of my task list for a representative week in 2012 (yes, these really were all one week and yes, they were all for ThoughtWire ).</p>
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Empty dishwasher (fill dishwasher...repeat)</li>
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Internal sprint demo and planning, last one for the year</li>
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Clear space on maven repository</li>
<li>
Buy gifts for office Christmas party</li>
<li>
Customer presentations (numerous and varied)</li>
<li>
Partner opportunity discussion with another CTO (cool discussion!)</li>
<li>
Joint sprint planning session with customer product owners and our services folk (love these!)</li>
<li>
Hardware store; buy wrench, hard hat, fly swatter, level (for our inaugural internal badge awards)</li>
<li>
Design discussion on Studio (can't wait for the new year, this is going to be awesome)</li>
<li>
Refactoring some core classes to support better resource use</li>
<li>
Work with our lawyer to redraft license agreements for use with partner</li>
<li>
Cab home from train station after leaving car key at work :-(</li>
<li>
Evaluate stress test results (Woohoo, memory usage is flat!)</li>
<li>
Review breaking acceptance tests, triage</li>
<li>
Customer project launch discussion</li>
<li>
Pairing sessions with just about everyone</li>
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Buy bagels for the office (add more cream cheese)</li>
<li>
Blog!</li>
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