Minimize Drag On IT Resources With Custom Solutions

Posted on May 24, 2012 by

Clocked at over 68 mph, sailfish are the world’s fastest marine animals. Like their other underwater kin, sailfish have streamlined bodies that help them reduce drag in the water, which is 750 times denser than air. According to VMC solutions architect Keith Prunella, creating custom solutions to integrate with SharePoint can reduce drag on a company’s IT resources.

In today’s tech-savvy environment, employees bring their own technologies to work. But, it’s impossible and impractical for an IT department to support every Web application out there, so information silos pop up all over. One group may use an application that another group has a need for, but doesn’t even know exists. Silos are not only inconvenient and inefficient; they are barriers to collaboration.

For example, many sites and applications consolidate social media accounts. They can give you a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) dashboard to track analytics, get tweet volumes, Facebook volumes, and ‘likes’ trends. However, we’ve developed similar solutions using a SharePoint framework for some clients.

When we create custom solutions that integrate with SharePoint, it provides users with a familiar interface that minimizes their learning curve and lets them navigate through and use the social media tool intuitively. Creating integrated solutions also means we can tap into security, content management, workflow and compliance features in the SharePoint architecture to ensure user activities don’t contribute to communications chaos or security risks. So, ultimately, streamlining and standardizing on platforms and tools is more cost effective and efficient for both the IT department and the users.

Streamlined systems allow sailfish to maneuver fast and nimbly. How could custom applications that integrate with SharePoint or other core platforms enable your IT team to provide more agile support?

Keith Prunella is a Solutions Architect at VMC Consulting. Contact Keith at keithpr@vmc.com or 877.393.8622.

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Cloud Computing: Dishing Up A Variety of Options

Posted on May 22, 2012 by

Thanks to late 19th century Italian immigrants, a classic treat from Naples found its way to the U.S. These days, Neopolitan, with its characteristic vanilla, chocolate and strawberry layers, is one of America’s favorite ice creams. VMC expert Chuck Hobart says that the Cloud also comes in three distinct flavors, each with different capabilities.

There are three service models in Cloud computing. In the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model, the Cloud provider gives a customer use of a segment of a server. The provider powers, maintains and upgrades the hardware, and they charge their customer a small monthly sum for that convenience.

The Software as a Service (SaaS) model is for people who don’t want to deal with software or application licenses. Licenses are headaches for the accounting department of larger companies. Often, a company will pay for hundreds of licenses, but a significant number of employees don’t even use the application. The SaaS model is a “software on demand” approach: employees can use Cloud-hosted applications only when they need to, for a small fee per use.

The possibilities are endless with the Platform as a Service (PaaS) model, which allows application developers to configure and create computing platforms in a Cloud’s infrastructure. Let me give you an example of how PaaS can empower a business. In bridge construction, a three-person team might use a series of specialized applications and systems that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, if that team taps into a Cloud-based bridge engineering platform,  it shares the cost with thousands of other users; licensing costs go wildly down.

PaaS also provides entrepreneurial possibilities. If you create a platform that a lot people are clamoring to use, you could sell its configuration as a marketable Cloud product.

There are multiple choices in Cloud computing to save money and eliminate the headache of maintaining on-site servers or data centers. What are you doing to get the scoop on which option could serve you best?

Contact Chuck Hobart by email at ChuckH@vmc.com or by phone at 877.393.8622.

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UAT Participants: Proper Selection Drives Success

Posted on May 17, 2012 by

A golfer wouldn’t use a driver to chip a golf ball from a sand trap or a pitching wedge to attempt a 300 yard drive from the tee. He matches the club by its purpose to the goals and conditions of his next shot. VMC expert Galen Erickson talks about why it’s equally important to be purpose driven in selecting just the right User Acceptance Testing (UAT) participants.

We select a specific mix of participants based on the kind of UAT we’re  performing. We don’t send out blanket inquiries to every person who uses a tool because users have different proficiency levels. It’s hard to perform UAT with participants who are technically users of a tool but barely touch it on a daily basis.

We take three different routes to find participants: solutions and delivery teams, field deployment teams, and project management teams. We interview people from these groups and develop a list of potential UAT participants. We want to get diverse representation, to see a tool from all angles.

People from solutions and delivery teams often have specific ideas on how they’d like a tool changed or adjusted. They’re tapped into end user concerns, so they have solid recommendations for UAT participants. People from field deployment teams are concerned with how to manage the new or updated version of a tool because they train end users to get up to speed; participants recommended by this group tend to orient around that. We also find UAT participants through project management teams. These participants have very specific requirements that we purposely want to target and test.

It takes strategic participant selection to conduct a UAT that effectively determines whether users will consider your solution up to par. What are you doing to drive greater user acceptance by choosing the right representation for your validation team?

Contact Galen Erickson at GalenEr@vmc.com or call 877.393.8622.

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Home In On Your Audience With Digital Snacks

Posted on May 16, 2012 by

In a war game, you can win a simple battle by sending in the foot soldiers. However, in more complicated scenarios, the sniper is the better bet. Here, VMC Engagement Manager Michael Pruitt talks about how function plays a key role in choosing the right format for digital snacks.

We’ve discussed why we start off creating text-based digital snacks in blogs, the iterative process that follows, and the goal of reaching a critical mass. What comes next is, from our critical mass, we decide which snacks need the fidelity turned up – which ones would be better in graphical, audio, video, or other complex formats. It’s easier to glance at the diagram of an engine, for instance, than to read through a long description of the engine. People also retain knowledge best when information comes in a variety of formats.

Of course, deciding what form a snack takes isn’t arbitrary. The needs of our clients as well as the information consumers drive the delivery types. For example, we had a client in the games industry that wanted to improve the training program for their new hires. As we worked to break down the training program into manageable snacks, it became clear the company struggled with high turnover. Through exit interviews, we learned that employees were internalizing the chaotic working environment and felt they were not successful in their jobs because of it.

Instead of writing down many words that basically conveyed, “Don’t worry about the chaos,” we said to the client, “Let’s create a video of a person working at a desk. Let’s have a war game going on all around that person, and let’s say, ‘Is this how you feel? Great! Because that’s what life is like around here.’” By turning up the fidelity on a snack that required it, the message was conveyed succinctly – and in a way that really resonated with people.

With digital content creation, it’s vital to present information in a format that engages your audience. What strategies are you deploying to maximize the effectiveness of your materials?

Michael Pruitt is an Engagement Manager at VMC Consulting. You can contact Michael at MichaelPru@vmc.com or 877.393.8622.

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Which Cloud Suits You Best?

Posted on May 15, 2012 by

When it’s cold outside, we wear heavy sweaters. When it’s hot, we don t-shirts. On in-between days, we layer multiple shirts. VMC Engagement Manager Chuck Hobart tells us that picking the right Cloud deployment model is a lot like shopping for clothes. You need to think about your environment, your needs and your budget.

There are four Cloud deployment models, as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Public clouds are the most known deployment model – and what people most often mean when they refer to “the Cloud.” These clouds are made available to the general public either free, like Facebook, or on a low-cost subscription basis. They’re maintained and hosted by a third party and are very scalable; you simply pay a higher subscription rate if you want more capacity.

If your needs are specific – for instance if there are legislative concerns that affect your industry – you could share a cloud with other similar entities in a community cloud. Though you spread the cloud’s cost among many stakeholders, this deployment model still costs more than public clouds; but you get higher levels of privacy and security. Community clouds are useful in government, education and banking.

If you have the resources and want a cloud completely dedicated to your company, a private cloud is the way to go. Private clouds are costly compared to the other models, but they’re also the most secure cloud model and are less costly than running your own data center. Contrary to popular belief, they can exist off-premise and be managed by a third party.

Say you don’t want to pay lots of money for a big private cloud. You want to store your proprietary information and technology in a small private cloud, and you want access to emails and blogs through a public cloud. Consider a hybrid cloud environment, which is two or more separate clouds, or a data center and a cloud, that are tied together.

When you’re shopping for a Cloud solution, a thorough assessment can help you “try before you buy.” What’s your strategy for evaluating which Cloud option is the right fit for all of your business, technological, and security requirements?

 Contact Chuck Hobart by email at ChuckH@vmc.com or by phone at 877.393.8622.

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UAT: Yes, You Get Fries With That.

Posted on May 10, 2012 by

Part of the value of that lunchtime “value meal” is that a side of fries is included in the combo. VMC expert Galen Erickson talks about how the value proposition for User Acceptance Testing (UAT) also includes an opportunity to develop more efficient and effective training for new software or solutions.

A side benefit to performing UAT can be training cost savings. UAT basically provides a sneak-peek at what training is needed, so a training team can leverage what we learn in UAT and use it to refine their training strategies.

Rather than just simply testing existing tools or processes, UAT often introduces new features to users. Since users are exploring those features for the first time, they have the opportunity to stumble through the steps. If, in UAT, the non-prescriptive guidance documents we give to the users are unclear, or if certain sections need elaboration, the UAT team learns about it in the first few hours. We often modify the guidance documents based on that quick feedback.

The areas where UAT documentation is lacking is an indication of what needs to be changed or what needs to be stressed more in training. Sometimes at the end of UAT, a trainer takes our guidance document and develops training material from it. However, instead of writing a 100-page manual that covers everything evenly, the manual writer can save time and money writing a much more concise training guide that strategically glosses over things users don’t have issues with and focuses on the critical areas discovered during UAT.

In today’s economic climate, it’s more important than ever be able to recognize unexpected side benefits, seize them, and take advantage of them. What are you doing to make sure that golden opportunities aren’t slipping through your fingers?

Email Galen Erickson at GalenEr@vmc.com or call him at 877.393.8622.

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Third Snack from the Sun

Posted on May 9, 2012 by

When Galileo declared that the earth orbited the sun, he was found guilty of heresy and placed under house arrest until his death. Of course, we now know the sun is at the center of our solar system and view Galileo as the father of the modern science. Michael Pruitt, an Engagement Manager at VMC, talks about why conventional wisdom can actually be an obstacle in creating digital snacks.

We’ve established that when we create content using the digital snacks methodology, the risks and waste go down after each iteration because we’re routinely learning new things. When waste goes down, so does cost. But, one benefit of the iterative process that isn’t always apparent is the valuable unlearning that happens during the first sprint of 25 or so snacks.

Unlearning helps retrain the writing team and helps them adopt the digital snacks paradigm moving forward. Typically, the writers’ experience with technical training is producing conventional manuals. They’re comfortable writing start-to-finish tech pubs following a more traditional, linear model. That’s their “habit.” If you’ve ever tried to give up a “bad habit,” you’ve learned that you don’t just get rid of the old habit; you replace it with a “good” one. You force yourself to exercise every time you want to plunk down and watch TV. Or, you reach for a glass of water instead of that sugary, caffeinated cola. It’s awkward and uncomfortable at first, but soon, you settle into your new, healthier habit and automatically go for a run after work or grab a glass of water.

When the team starts creating the first 25 snacks, they’re still working from their old paradigm. Initially, they do have to make some assumptions; at that point, while they’re are informed on the topic, they’re not yet experts. Once they finish the first snacks and get feedback, though, the team changes their mindset and moves forward with the next iteration more informed and more adept. Basically, the team is retrained, moving from a traditional publishing model to the more efficient digital snacks model – and this retraining comes at very little cost.

Because humans are creatures of habit, unlearning and retraining can be a tough, costly process if there isn’t a clear strategy in place. With content creation, what are you doing to make sure that all your stars align?

Michael Pruitt is an Engagement Manager at VMC Consulting. You can contact Michael at MichaelPru@vmc.com or 877.393.8622.

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The Quest for Computing’s Holy Grail

Posted on May 8, 2012 by

In Arthurian legend, the Holy Grail is a sacred but elusive vessel associated with divine revelation. King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table spent years searching for it, but came up empty-handed. VMC Engagement Manager Chuck Hobart explains why he thinks computing’s own grail quest has already turned up real rewards.

Because the modern concept of Cloud computing is still in its infancy and constantly changing, many people are understandably mystified by it. But I ask them, “Are you on Facebook? Are you using web-based email?” If they answer yes, I tell them they are already in the Cloud and have been for a while.

The Cloud actually has origins in the 1960s, with ARPANET (Advance Research Projects Agency Network). Instead of having to take a disk out of a computer and physically run it down the hall to give to someone, the federal government decided to connect computers using a basic communications protocol. Over time, ARPANET developed into the Internet, which is the original Cloud. The Cloud term came about because at the time, it was the easiest way for architects to diagram the complex maze of connections that made up the Internet.

As the Internet Cloud grew larger, it became harder for a person to sift through the millions of pieces of information to find what they wanted, so a web crawler was created to do that job. This was the basis for Cloud computing – the idea of using the Internet to perform tasks. It wasn’t long before people wanted to do their tasks from anywhere; they didn’t want to be restricted to the computers on their desks.

Today, Cloud computing is more of a concept than it is hardware or software. It provides a structure that allows you to access information from any device anywhere, while maintaining security. Since day one, the industry has been looking for the Holy Grail of computing. The ideal is to get information accurately, rapidly, and as needed. With Cloud computing, we’ve now come as close to that Holy Grail as we’ve ever been.

Being able to use resources on an as-needed basis, with complete reliability, at low cost, is paramount to a business’ success. While the concept may have seemed like a myth mere years ago, it’s now within reach. What steps are you making to harness the efficiencies of Cloud computing?

Contact Chuck Hobart by email at chuckh@vmc.com or call him at 877-393-8622.

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Have It Your Way With UAT

Posted on May 3, 2012 by

Lagging Burger King experienced a reputational boost in 2002, when new CEO Brad Blum reinstated the burger chain’s most famous slogan, “Have it your way.” The campaign really resonated with young consumers, who craved customization, and rekindled consumer and investor confidence in the chain. Here, VMC’s Galen Erickson tells us how User Acceptance Testing (UAT) enables users to have software “their way,” inspiring a sense of ownership and improving its adoption.

Because UAT is performed by clients or end users rather than testers, the users become stakeholders in the software being developed, which can help boost their confidence in the product – and can prevent that “black eye” previously discussed.

Let’s say you order a hamburger at a fast food restaurant, and it isn’t exactly how you’d like it, so you take it back to the counter. If that burger was software and your order taker was a functional tester, the response you’d get may be something like, “Tough luck. That’s what comes on the burger you ordered.” In functional testing, they are just making sure that nothing is broken on the tactical side.

Instead, if that burger joint used UAT, you might say “I want lettuce on this hamburger.” The person behind the counter will give you the lettuce and say “There you go.”

Nothing was really broken or wrong with the hamburger. But, UAT gives the developer a chance to show the end user the product. That person gets to play around with it – preview it, take ownership, and say, “Yes, this is actually what I ordered.”

UAT allows end users and clients to be involved in how software is developed, instilling confidence that the product will work in the real world just the way they want it to. How could your software users’ performance and productivity benefit by letting them have it their way?

Contact Galen Erickson at GalenEr@vmc.com or call 877.393.8622.

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Digital Snack Production: One Bite At A Time

Posted on May 1, 2012 by

Pythons are famous for their ability to consume large prey whole. To them, a water buffalo, six-foot long alligator or a 130-pound deer are manageable. But, when it comes to digital snacks, VMC expert Michael Pruitt tells us that a “one bite at a time” strategy is just as important for how we produce them as it is for how our audience consumes them.

We publish digital snacks when we reach “critical mass” – some minimum set of snacks that creates a useful body of knowledge for our audience. That’s our “digital banquet.” It will vary by the client and project, but generally, 100 or so snacks seem to be a good target. But, we don’t produce all of them at once.

To recap our “how to,” first, we decide what the organizing principle is, and then we capture what we believe to be the relevant information in the form of FAQs. Next, we select 25 from our list that we think are most likely to be the real “burning questions” of our audience. We answer them in a simple text blog format before putting them in front of information consumers to get feedback.

Though a text blog format may not be the ultimate or ideal way to present certain bits of information, we start with this because it’s the least-cost means of producing them. That way, even if we find out through the feedback that some of the snacks are not as valuable to our audience as we expected, we’ve invested very little in their production. It’s cheaper to throw out a few written snacks than to throw out an entire manual – or even snacks in which we’ve already invested in the higher costs of, say, 3-D illustration or video formats. Another advantage is we learn a lot during that first iteration and apply that knowledge to the next subset of snacks. With each iteration, the snacks are better, more refined, more on target.

The key to reducing costs and risks in producing a digital banquet is not to bite off more than you can chew. What are you doing to make both producing and consuming your body of knowledge more palatable?

Michael Pruitt is an Engagement Manager at VMC Consulting. You can contact Michael at MichaelPru@vmc.com or 877.393.8622.

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