October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 1

Local information management:The end-user revolution

Jean G raef

The M ontague Institute

Jean.graef at montague.com(413) 367-0245

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 2

Agenda

- W hatis “end userdevelopm ent”

E xam ples

?W hy do it

H ow to do it

Tools & techniques

Im plications forinfo pros

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 3

What is it?

Amateur computing in a business setting

Alternative, not replacement, for other strategies

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 4

It’s not new

1979 1985 1990 1994 2001V i s i c a l c P a g e m a k e r F i l e m a k e r I n t e r n e t S h a r e p o i n t

Mashups

Public APIs

Database: Three sources

1

2 3

Blogs

Plugins/Extensions

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 10

Who does it?

U niversity staff

Field scientists

Telecom m uters

A n yo n e w ith a p titu d e , d e s ire , la ck o f a c c e s s to IT re so u rc e s

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 11

Why do they do it?

They can

M ore know ledgeable

Instanthelp on the Internet

Free orlow costdow nloadable “w idgets”

, Tools are easierto use m ore sophisticated

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 12

Why do they do it?

U sers m ore assertive and vocal

There are m ore like m e

M y tim e is valuable

M y needs are unique

IT has no tim e form e

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 13

Why do they do it?

Lim itations ofcurrentapproaches

Lack ofuserinvolvem entcauses IT failures

U serrequirem ents hard to define in advance

Too m uch spenton “change m anagem ent”

% ofadopters is too sm all

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 14

Why do they do it?

P roprietary solutions decay overtim e

Lostfeatures

Incom patibilities

N o support

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 15

How to do it

. E nd userdevelopm entvs “w aterfallm ethod”

- . U ser initiated vs usability studies

. P rototyping vs functionalspecs

“ . C heatsheets”vs userm anuals

- - . O ne on one training vs form alcourses

Definition > Analysis > Design > Coding > Deployment > Maintenance

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 16

Tools & techniques

D atabases , , P lugins extensions m acros

, Freew are sharew are

C om m ercialservices

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 17

Databases

( )S earch engine thesaurus X M L

S earch engine search from thesaurus( )calculation

( / )S ite contents textprocessing im port

Search engine thesaurus

<set> <show>indexes</show> <show>linguistic tools</show></set>

Thesaurus.xml

Search engine thesaurus

http://www.montague.com:8765/query.html?col=public&qt=indexes&charset=iso-8859-1&image.x=0&image.y=0&image=+search+

Thesaurus search

Web site contents

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 22

Plugins, extensions, macros

( ) Textprocessing W ord

( )C ustom m etadata W ord

Text processing

Custom metadata

Freeware, shareware

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 26

Commercial services

( )P roQ uest im portm etadata

( )Factiva S harepointW eb part

( )A m azon Federated search

Import metadata

Sharepoint Web part

Federated search

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 30

Commercial application

iR ise S tudio

A pplication sim ulator

250,000S tarts at$

R educe rew ork costs

- -R educe tim e to m arket

: , , -C ustom ers A gilent W achovia W atsonW yatt

iRise Studio

iRise Studio

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 33

iRise business case

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 34

More savings

20 , W hatifW eb application saves $ peruser 28% ?butonly use it

100,000 x .28 = 28,000 x $20 = $560,000 savings

100,000 x .80 = 80,000 x $20 = $1,600,000 savings

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 35

Mentored development

M ontague Institute courses

-P rojectoriented

+ Theory Lab

Interdisciplinary team s

S ee how yourdata behaves

Inform ation m odeling w ith custom Lab

W ritten specifications

Im plem entation

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 36

On the other hand

U sers lack the tools

U sers lack training & help

’ C ode & data can teasily be reused

Lack ofquality assurance & datastandards

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 37

How to support them

N ew business m odel

C om m unities ofpractice

S tandards Interfaces

materials

architect

land

financing

craftsmen

schedule

Contractor model

Marketplace model

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 40

Marketplace model

P rojectideas

( S pecialinterests w ood projects for)gardens

B uying guide

- H ow to guides

Interactive planners

“ G reen”& healthy tips

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 41

Tips

C om m unities ofpractice

+ w ritten reference tools

A llow tim e fordevelopm entactivities

R ecognition & incentives

S egm entthe “m arket”

. P rofessionalvs am ateur

“ A gile”program m ing

:// .http agilem anifesto org

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 42

More tips

C ultivate “boundary spanners”

Focus on the gaps

D ata norm alization & transform ation

A pplication integration

- Inter departm entalw orkflow s

Targetthe business unitm anager

, S peak business nottechnology

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 43

“Lite” support practices

, , S oftw are versions em bedded com m ents- non technical“cheatsheet”

S earchable supportK B foreach developer

D ata cleanup services

- U se cross platform developm enttools

M ake testfiles and com puteravailable

October 30, 2006 © copyright Jean L. Graef 2006 44

More info

Montague Institute Reviewhttp://www.montague.com/review/review.html