App simulation in demand

27.06.2005
Von Heather Havenstein

As IT development operations spread beyond data center and national borders, some companies are looking to new simulation technology to bridge the gap between application development plans and the requirements submitted by business users.

Moves by IT organizations to boost offshore development and better utilize dispersed project teams are quickly increasing the need for the emerging tools, which let developers build prototype applications that can be reviewed by users.

CNA Financial Corp. in April began an initiative that calls for all new development projects to use simulation tools from El Segundo, Calif.-based iRise Inc. instead of paper-based requirements.

"No matter how thick or thin the requirements are, if it"s [on] paper, the user is not going to read it to the level they should be reading it," said Karl Gouverneur, senior vice president of solutions and architecture at Chicago-based CNA. "A simulation brings the product to life and shows exactly what [business users] are going to get."

The iRise tools allow business analysts to test-drive applications through simulation of the log-in process, data and business logic, and page layout -- without writing code.

CNA uses the tool to better communicate requirements from business users to software developers -- including offshore developers -- and to shorten the requirements cycle, Gouverneur added. "[The simulation] is a lot easier to communicate to people halfway around the world than text requirements," he said.

This week, iRise plans to unveil iRise 5, the fifth generation of its collaborative application-definition platform. The new version will package simulation capabilities along with text descriptions and user scenarios in a self-contained file that can be shared by multiple users.

Less labor required

Wachovia Corp. uses iRise simulation tools in its user design laboratory to simulate Web applications before deploying them to internal users or consumers, said Carter Hansen, design director of the user center in the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank"s e-commerce division.

"The more traditional way ... required a technical developer to build that prototype for us," he said. "We had to work across organizations and articulate the requirements rather than build it to suit our needs." The new iRise version should reduce the labor required to build simulated applications and increase Wachovia"s ability to manage the look and feel of a simulation, Hansen added.

Melissa Webster, an analyst at research firm IDC, listed iRise and Serena Software Inc. as the leading application simulation tool providers and said she expects that more will soon enter the fray.

The vendors" tools are designed to reduce rework on new applications, a task that Webster said can take up 20 percent of application developers" time in large companies.

"Flawed requirements is the leading cause of the failure of new applications," she said.

San Mateo, Calif.-based Serena in May unveiled software designed to simulate, visualize and prototype business processes and application requirements. Serena"s ProcessView Composer is based on technology that it acquired in March from Apptero Inc.

NorthStar Systems International Inc., a San Francisco-based firm that provides wealth management software and services for retail brokerages and banks, uses Serena"s tool to let business analysts provide visual simulations of applications to clients, said Bill King, director of products and professional services.

"A lot of times, it is easier for people to react to something that is visual -- what an application looks like and how it behaves," King said.