How Do You Like Me Now?!

1. How Do You Like Me Now?! www.teamia.com

2. Business Problem • Budgets are being cut • Work load is increasing • Current systems are lacking features • Outdated platforms • Inefficient business process

3. Solution(s) • Increase Efficiency • Effective use of technology • New technology • Upgrade or modification to existing systems • Re-engineer business processes

4. Changing World • Past • Mainframe application that lasted 20+ years • Programming skills and tools were static • Present • Distributed architectures, ESBs, Virtualization • Internet, GPS, mobile devices/smart phones • .NET, Java, Python, Erlang, Boo, DSL, Ruby • Programming skills and tools change rapidly • Future - ??

5. How? • Can you do it by yourself? • Should you? • Different Skills are needed to maintain a system compared to • Re-engineering business processing • Developing custom applications • Installing, configuring and customizing COTS or MOTS • If not then how can we reach a solution?

6. Partnership • Hire expertise through partnership(s) that have the knowledge and experience that you need • Let that partner guide you • Formulate a team consisting of agency resources and partner resources that take ownership and shared responsibility in the outcome of the project

7. What is a Partner? • “a person who shares or is associated with another in some action or endeavor; sharer; associate” • We are in this together. • Success or failure is up to us. • We need to know and trust each other. • Trust is built through face-to-face communications • Known expectations/responsibilities

8. Customer Bill of Rights • Expect analysts to speak your language. • Expect analysts to learn about your business and your objectives for the system. • Expect analysts to structure the requirements information you present into a software requirements specification. • Have developers explain work products. • Expect developers to treat you with respect and to maintain a collaborative and professional attitude. • Have analysts present ideas and alternatives both for your requirements and for implementation. • Describe characteristics that will make the product easy and enjoyable to use. • Be presented with opportunities to adjust your requirements to permit reuse of existing software components. • Be given good-faith estimates of the costs, impacts, and trade-offs when you request a change. • Receive a system that meets your functional and quality needs, to the extent that those needs have been communicated to the developers and agreed upon.

9. Customer Responsibilities • Educate analysts about your business and define jargon. • Spend the time to provide requirements, clarify them, and iteratively flesh them out. • Be specific and precise about the system’s requirements. • Make timely decisions when requested to do so. • Respect developers’ assessments of cost and feasibility. • Set priorities for individual requirements, system features, or use cases. • Review documents and prototypes. • Promptly communicate changes to the product’s requirements. • Follow a defined change control process. (This is often the development partners process) • Respect the engineering processes the partner uses.

10. Who? • Who should you chose as a partner? • Trust • Expertise

11. Expertise • Not created equal • Software development companies • Software products • Software Development Life Cycles (SDLC) • Project Management methodologies • PEOPLE

12. Assessing Company Expertise? • Not much different than hiring an employee • Resume – Proven track record • References • Approach • What do they bring with them? • Existing tools or products • Experience in the specific realm of the project • Knowledge of tools, frameworks or products that help solve the problem

13. Expertise - Continuity • A single prime partner leading the project • Partner should be able to provide skills for a project from inception through post production support • Project management, software architecture, infrastructure architecture, business analysis, design, development, testing (all levels), installation and support. • Continuity is critical

14. Cost? • Cost is not the most significant factor in determining a partnership. • Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is much more important than the initial cost: • Purchased/licensing costs • Initial implementation costs • Ongoing maintenance and system usage costs including agency employee costs • Infrastructure (hardware, power, network)

15. How to Reduce Costs? • Do less work • Work more efficiently • Pay less per unit of work

16. Do less work • Options for reducing work • Reduce features of application based on priority and severity. Possibly a phased approach • Reduce artifacts/deliverables. • Customer can take on more responsibilities • DO IT RIGHT. The most expensive work is rework.

17. Efficiency • Use the right person for the job. Huge difference in efficiency between people. • Better tools • Timely decisions and feedback • Resource Retention. Turnover of key resources is very expensive.

18. Pay less per unit of work • Only works if comparing apples-to-apples. • ie. If rate on Person A drops, cost will drop. But replace Person A with Person B cost might drop or rise depending upon the individuals. • Be careful not to look at rates only. You might get what you pay for.

19. Business Problems • Budgets are being cut • Work load is increasing • Current systems are lacking features • Outdated platforms • Inefficient business process

20. Solution • A Trusted partner that has the expertise, proven experience, people and tools to guide the team through the process.

21. TEAM ia • Industry leader in Document Imaging, Document Management and business process workflows • EMC Strategic partner offering storage and virtualization solutions • Long history of delivering customer focused software solutions to business problems • Locally owned and operated

22. TEAM ia Expertise • TEAM ia has add key staff to help grow in the application development domain • TEAM ia provides expertise in all areas of SDLC

23. TEAM ia Tools • Besides the suite of licensed tools owned and licensed by TEAM ia, also provide a full suite of the other “Tools of the Trade”

24. Questions & Comments • Questions or Comments?

25. Thank You! www.teamia.com