If you have ever wondered if there is, actually a difference between Software Quality Assurance (SQA) and Software Testing then continue reading, as I will try to explain that they are not simply two different names for the same concept, but rather different aspects of the broader area of quality.

What is Software Quality Assurance?

Software Quality Assurance is a systematic planned approach to monitoring and improving the entire software development process in an attempt to ensure quality and a level of confidence that the software is free from vulnerabilities and functions as intended. This planned approach attempts to implement standardization throughout the development life cycle, which includes requirements definition, software design, coding, source code control, code reviews, change management, configuration management, testing, release management, and product integration, ensuring that issues are found and dealt with through goals, measurements, validation, and verification.

Did you see the word “testing” in the above definition? Yes, you did, and that is because testing is a component of the overarching processes implemented within Software Quality Assurance.

What is Software Testing?

Software Testing is the concentrated execution of processes to validate and verify a software system matches its specifications and is free of defects. The actual process of Software Testing can encompass many types of testing to ensure quality. Below I have provided a brief list of the different types of testing; however, this list is not all-inclusive.

• Black box testing
• White box testing
• Integration testing
• Functional testing
• Load testing
• Stress testing
• Performance testing
• Security testing
• Usability testing
• Regression testing
• Sanity testing
• Exploratory testing (my personal favorite)

What is the take away from these definitions?

The distinctive difference everyone should understand is that executing test scripts and finding defects does not automatically mean that quality assurance is in place for a software product. It simply means that testing is being performed in an attempt to find and fix as many defects as possible within the product.

For Quality Assurance to be a part of a software product, standards must be implemented and followed. To do this, metrics are measured to ensure all involved in the software development life cycle are following the processes as defined.

The name game

Many use the terms SQA and Software Testing interchangeably.  It can be easy to confuse the two. I, too, have been guilty of defining myself as a “Tester” simply for the sake of saving time in defining my job functions as they relate to quality. It is really just a name game and as long a company or project has clearly defined steps to ensure quality then the name does not really matter.

In closing

SQA and Software Testing are different: SQA concentrates on the process while testing concentrates on the end product. Both are designed to ensure quality within a product. The next time I find myself responding, “Testing is a portion of what I do, yes,” I will make sure to refer that person to this blog for a more detailed definition of SQA and how testing is a portion of my job function, but not the only skill I can contribute to a company or project. Quality ROCKS!

Examples:

• Check each entry field that has maximum-length string data.
• Check each required field that has null data.
• Challenge type-checking validation of each field that has data of a different type from what is allowed.
• Test for all data values that are simultaneously maximized or most stressful.
• Verify that the nominal value of data is accepted, stored, retrieved, and displayed.
• Logon/Logoff
• Password Validation
• Open/Close/Maximize/Minimize

Let’s discuss the next steps.

Expansion and Improvements

Test-design specification templates should be expanded beyond the typical empty-document sections to fill in to include generic validation rules, test-case checklists, common failure modes, and libraries of generic tests.  The templates should include many of the usual tests for application features, so that they do not have to be added or reinvented. Part of this generic design should implement “boilerplate” tests that will be the first ones that every testing effort should include, even before considering more sophisticated and instance-specific tests.  In this way, the generic test-design specifications allow any tester—for example, a new contingent staff member—to perform a range of generic tests, even before any customized, application-specific test planning.

Examples:

1. Identify a record or field upon which to operate (based on input name and parameter info).
2. Verify nonexistence.
3. Add item.
4. Read and verify existence of identical unchanged data.
5. Modify and verify matching modified data.
6. Delete and verify removal of item.
7. Identify item with type characteristics (for example, a data field) at an abstract level. This should not be limited to simple data types, but should include common business data types (for example, telephone number, address, ZIP code, customer, Social Security number, calendar date, and so on).

Mature examples:

1. Enumerate the generic business rules that are associated with the type.
2. Define equivalence partitions and boundaries for the values for each business rule.
3. Select test-case values from each equivalence class.
4. Generate randomized item from equivalence classes.

Further Advances

• Reduce ad-hoc reinvention of test designs by capturing and reusing common test patterns.
• Recognize and abstract test issues. Capture them in a form that can be reapplied as a higher-level chunk of activity instead of always dropping down to the detailed instance level.
• Package the results and experience of past test-design work into a reusable deliverable that can be applied to similar test efforts.
• Create checklists of generalized “things to test” that will be a resource for reuse on future versions or applications.  These generalized tests should augment the separate list of feature details (business rules) and associated tests that truly are unique to a specific project.
• Catalogue common and generic failure modes as items to verify, and make them part of test-design templates.
• Collect and document explicit test coverage categories, so that they can be incorporated into analysis and test design.
• Ensure that each category contains as complete a set of tests as possible to ensure coverage of the category.  Divide the results into generic and unique subsets of tests.  Reuse the generic portions of these lists for future efforts.
• Test-design specification templates should be expanded beyond empty-document sections to fill in to include generic validation rules, test-case checklists, common failure modes, and libraries of generic tests.

Conclusion

Testers should build test designs around reusable test patterns that are common to a large number of application-testing problems. The inclusion of these patterns as a standard part of the test-design template reduces the time that is spent on test design by eliminating the need to start with a blank test-design specification. Reuse of these patterns has the added benefit of codifying expert-tester knowledge, so as to increase the likelihood of catching common failures.

Final Words

The introduction of automated testing is in itself a project. Treat it so. Plan it as you would any major project. Make it a first-level level item.  Involve all members of your team from developers to management. Expect discussion, setbacks, and a few hefty headaches as you grow.

SOUND OFF: Have you implemented automated testing in your organization? What hurdles did you face?

Automation Testing is a Component of the SDLC

The answer to this evidently relies on how any company is using automation testing within their software development life cycle (SDLC). It is important to evaluate this factor because automation testing itself is an entity of the SDLC. There must be proper understanding of what piece within the software will be automated and how much benefit it will provide after spending X amount of time behind automating that functionality of the software application.

I have seen many companies captivated by the awesomeness of automation testing and pursuing the delusion of being able to automate the testing process, but forgetting to evaluate what piece needs to be automated, what benefit it will provide, and mainly the process to determine the long-term goals of the automation testing process. Besides this, the main factor that can turn any automation testing into a catch phrase is choosing inappropriate testing tools, having too complex a framework, and not knowing the restrictions that could affect your automation testing process. One major constraint is knowing the time spent to keep those automated scripts updated and what the impact on those scripts will be if the software application’s functionality or user interface is changed.

Carefully Consider All of the Factors

To avoid automation testing being just a catch phrase, any automation engineer needs to evaluate the above mentioned factors. Keep in mind how much manual process any particular automated script will save and what will be the challenges in case the system functionality or the application’s user interface is changed. Also, it is very important that the automated testing tool support different OS versions and if you’re willing to test the application on multiple platforms and different OS versions.

There is no doubt that automation testing provides a great deal of benefits and saves a good amount of time—but only if it’s implemented in an appropriate manner, evaluating all factors mentioned above. However, the process of automation testing doesn’t stop here. What we have talked about so far is the input and having automation testing implemented for any organization. But what else after this is achieved?

There should be a unified process for reporting errors and tracking bug defects so that the results of your automation test can be easily incorporated within the bug-reporting tool. This is essential to track the progress of your software development, as well as the process of solving the identified bugs while performing testing. Using both of these processes, managers can easily view and track the status of their product development.

Lastly, to make automation testing a reality depends on the team responsible for its implementation. And we all should remember that we are as good as our team is… So make that catch phrase a reality and enjoy the goodies of automation testing.

Sound Off: Has your organization integrated automated testing holistically? Or is automated testing a passing fad?

Setting up Google Analytics to capture site metrics is usually a pretty straightforward task. However, sometimes it requires a bit of creative thinking when you run into unexpected challenges.

Graphic by David Vincente. Some rights reserved.

The Challenge

On a recent project, we were installing Google Analytics to capture data for a website that was contained within a sub-directory of a larger corporate site. The business owner wanted to capture data specific to her sub-site—in particular—how many visits to the sub-site it took for a user to submit a contact form. It was important for the business owner to know this to make a judgment on how well the content was doing to explain the offering and persuade the user to take the next step. A reasonable request, right?

Here’s where the challenge came in.  Because marketing campaigns were going to be sending visitors directly to the sub-site, the business owner needed to record visitors to the sub-site separately from visitors to the larger corporate site.  Currently, the cookie tracking unique visits was being written to the corporate domain. So, for example, if a user visited the corporate site two times, then visited the sub-site twice and submitted a contact form on the second visit, Google Analytics would show that it took this user four visits to submit a contact form. We would have no way of knowing how many of those visits prior to the last visit were actually visits to the sub-site.

We called on Experience Architect Travis Moser to do a little investigating.  Here’s what he learned and how he recommended resolving the problem.

The Solution

We needed to figure out how to show that even if visitors had previously visited the larger corporate site, they should be counted as new visitors when they arrived on the sub-site. At the same time, we needed to track these visits to the sub-site to the larger corporate site Google Analytics account. Essentially, we needed to track the visitors to the sub-site twice—once to the larger corporate Google Analytics account—and once to the sub-site Google Analytics account, while making sure the data for one account didn’t affect the data for the other.

On the surface, that doesn’t seem too difficult. Let’s say the domain name for the site is http://www.acme.com and the sub-site is at http://www.acme.com/sub-site/. After some research, this is the code that we found others using:

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
gaq.push(
  ['setAccount', 'UA-XXXXA-X'], // global site account number
  ['trackPageview'],
  ['ss.setAccount', 'UA-XXXXB-X'], // sub-site account number
  ['ss.trackPageview']
);

The problem with this code is that because both site accounts use the same domain name, their cookies will conflict, resulting in inaccurate visitor counts. The accuracy of visitor counts was critical to determining the effectiveness of the site content. We realized we needed to force Google Analytics to set two separate cookies—one for each account. This can be accomplished by either setting a separate domain name for each account or by setting the cookie path for one of the accounts to a different directory. Because the sub-site is in a separate directory, it made more sense to set the cookie path for the sub-site account like this:

 var _gaq = _gaq || [];
gaq.push(
  ['setAccount', 'UA-XXXXA-X'], // global site account number
  ['trackPageview'],
  ['ss.setAccount', 'UA-XXXXB-X'], // sub-site account number
  ['ss.setCookiePath', '/sub-site'], // different cookie for sub-site
  ['ss.trackPageview']
);

Now the data is tracked into two separate Google Analytics accounts with two separate cookies: the larger corporate site account’s cookie domain is set to www.acme.com, and the sub-site’s cookie domain is set to www.acme.com/sub-site/.  Problem solved! The business owner will have an understanding of how the new site content is doing to get visitors to take action, and the corporate site owners will still be able to accurately track unique visitors to the site overall.

Travis, you rock!

Previously I spoke of the problems in attaining a level of success when implementing automated testing within a project.

For example:

• Spare time test automation (team members consumed by larger tasks)
• Lack of clear goals (is implementation of successful  automation processes the long-term goal or simply a wishful thought?)
• Lack of experience (inexperienced staff who may create short-term fixes without long term success)
• High team member turnover (when test automation is not its own project and team members better utilized elsewhere, or they simply run out of time to accomplish the automation goals)
• Reaction to desperation (struggling to learn and meet timelines simultaneously)
• Reluctance to think about testing (focus on automation prized above the testing itself)
• Technology focus (do the results meet the testing needs?)
• Labor intensive (management of the automation processes may prove to be far more extensive than manual testing if not created and managed as reusable resources)

This leads me to the conclusion that Test Automation should be looked at as a Software Development Project.

An organization is often oblivious to the fact that it is actually developing software; there is no distinction between the users and the developers. This is the place that test automation often finds itself.  Thus, dedicating resources to test automation and treating it like a development activity elevates it to the first level. This is the core of the solution to the problems of test automation. Test automation projects should be run just as any other software development project.

Like other software development projects, developers should be dedicated to developing the test automation.

• Test automation automates a task in which the developer is probably not an expert. Therefore, skilled testers should be consulted and should provide the requirements.
• Test automation benefits if the approach is designed before coding is started.
• Test automation code needs to be tracked and secured. Therefore, source code management is a requirement.
• Test automation will have bugs. Therefore, it is a necessity to have to plan to track them, test for them and provide change management.
• Users will need to know how to use the tests and the tools. Consequently, create and update user documentation.

Assuming that you are part of a software organization that already has some idea as to what reasonable and effective methods should be used for developing software; you are urged to abide by those rules established for software development in your own test automation. The goal is to maintain the concepts used for software development projects, alongside the considerations and challenges that are particular to test automation.

Examples:

1. Improve the testing process
2. Define requirements
3. Prove the concept
4. Encourage product testability
5. Design for sustainability
6. Plan for deployment

Intro to Automated Testing 101 (avoid initial high-end costs, training, and time investments)

As stated above, some of the most immediate goals of automated testing are as follows:

1. Improve speed and efficiency
2. Establish reliability of process
3. Create repeatable processes
4. Manage reusable processes

Additional objectives are:

1. Reduce costs
2. Prove the concepts
3. Improve the overall testing process

What efforts can be most quickly served through automation and positively affect the items listed above?

There at least two (2) primary conditions where the introduction of automation can create immediate cost and time savings with reduced training and lower initial financial investment.

1. Changes of environment, testing across multiple browsers (IE, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.) or multiple browser versions (IE7, IE8, etc.).
2. Testing of systems that process large volumes of data i.e., retail, medical, research, etc.

In both of these cases, the tests remain essentially the same through each repetition. They can be created by recording keystrokes and mapping them to a script or by loading diverse data sets to test the flexibility of the system.

Test engineers start with a blank page in a test-design specification and fill it in detail by detail, when many of these issues are generic and common to nearly every application-testing scenario. Again, the introduction of recordable testing tools to create an initial package of test designs without programming and with minimal training is possible. These designs can be readily modified with the edit tools provided by relatively inexpensive testing suites (5 figures versus 6 to 7 figures) to adjust designs quickly for reuse.

Examples as follows:

• Check each entry field that has maximum-length string data.
• Check each required field that has null data.
• Challenge type-checking validation of each field that has data of a different type from what is allowed.
• Test for all data values that are simultaneously maximized or most stressful.
• Verify that the nominal value of data is accepted, stored, retrieved, and displayed.
• Logon/logoff
• Password validation
• Open/close/maximize/minimize

In my next post, we’ll discuss how you can keep building and improving test automation to continue to streamline the process.

SOUND OFF: Why do you think test automation projects should be run just as any other software development project?

What seems to be overlooked is what impacts the creation of intellectual assets.

It is clear that the more one tests and the more things one tests and the more testing paradigms one operates in, the more intellectual assets one gains. However, in the economy of increasing testing-knowledge assets, the value of manual testing may be underrated and underutilized.

Why Would Exploratory Testing Be Underrated?

Knowledge comes from seeing and seeing comes from, well, from seeing. And what are the revelations the best tester never sees? Yep—what the automated test tool sees.

When a test is complex, especially if it is emulating user behavior, it seems sensible to execute some of the failed tests manually.  There will be lots of things for the wizened tester to see and think about when walking  through the steps that failed in the automated tests.

An automated test tool will never tell when it sees a missed test condition. On the other hand, manual testers are constantly calling out missed test conditions.

Automated Testing Does Not Remove The Need for Exploratory Testing

Overlapping automated tests with manual tests may not be cost effective, but replacing manual tests with automated tests may cost more in terms of product quality.

Do not stop manual testing just because automated test are in place and used. For quality (and your promotion’s) sake, keep on using exploratory testing.

My experience has been that exploratory testing finds the obscure, deadly bugs. The extra resources “wasted” doing seemingly duplicate exploratory testing is easier to take than the call that the production server crashed because a user dropped a book on their keyboard.

The best organizations will recognize the value of exploratory testing in all testing efforts. Not just because of the obscure bugs they reveal and the missed test conditions, but as importantly, what the testers see along the way.

SOUND OFF: In your testing organization, has exploratory testing ever revealed an obscure bug that automated testing missed?

They hire you to help them with their testing. From the initial analysis gathered in a meeting with them, you recommend a risk-based approach to testing. The major reason for selecting this approach is that they have not budgeted enough time for the testing efforts. One guesses they did not budget enough time partly because they are new to software development and software testing specifically. So, the project is nearly complete with just a couple of months to go, and they still have not started testing. Conclusion: a risk-based approach is our best choice.

Let’s expand the picture to say the solution is huge: three different vendors are bringing in their software packages and they have to integrate so that total solution provides a seamless communication of both vital and non-vital information, as well as some very technical information, necessary to propel this  business into the future growth it desires.

In other words, you come in and see Goliath and know that a risk-based approach will best address this very challenging task: provide a measure of testing and an understanding of the software quality in an incredibly small time frame, considering the size of the solution.

More detailed reasoning for choosing risk-based testing

From our experience, risk-based testing is one of the best methods of documenting a testing approach while cutting costs and staying  extremely agile, which is good for a company just beginning to create testing processes and practices. It is less expensive and it has a faster cycle.  Also, we have found risk-based testing a great way to start if you want higher confidence that you are testing the right things at the right time.

We use the client’s  SMEs (subject matter experts) to define risk areas and then rate them so that we have information to drive the plan. Since you know which areas are critical, you start with the highest risk areas and work your way through the others. As part of this process, you want the project management team to create guidelines for success and completion. For example, the cycles of testing will be complete when you have tested all the high-risk areas three times; the medium-risk areas twice; and have done some analysis on the low-risk areas, based on the testing of the other two areas.

Here again, the time constraints are the driving factor (as well as some other context-driven situations, e.g. lack of written requirements). So we recommended and went with SBTM – Session Based Testing Methodology. This framework allows for a maximum “hands on” testing and a minimum of documentation and management of the process. Based on limited time, the need to maximize testing efforts and minimize documentation and other administrative efforts, we decided this was our best framework for testing.

We often hear “the devil is in the details,” but for us, in this case, the devil was getting to the details, which we just described as learning how to help the company move into testing and do it with the constraints that were given. Our solution was risk-based testing with SBTM.

As for the details, we worked within the time frame allotted and accomplished what we needed to, thanks to our ability to pick the solution that best fit our context. We did lots of testing; covered the areas that were expected to cover; and delivered the needed work and documentation.

The biggest lesson we learned from implementing risk-based testing using a Session Based Testing framework was “never stop asking questions.”

This is a story that does not end here, but continues every day. We like stories.

Some Useful Links
James Bach – http://www.satisfice.com/
Michael Bolton – http://www.developsense.com/
Mike Kelly – http://michaeldkelly.com/

SOUND OFF: Do you have a testing story to share? We’d love to hear it!

Yeah—sounded like a good plan to me until I was asked to do the testing.   Yikes!  I manage digital projects and develop content.  I consider myself more of a “creative,” for gosh sakes. You want me to test software? Gulp!

So, with some expert guidance, test software I did.  I became familiar with the language and format of test scripts. I executed them. I even graduated to writing a few. I found bugs and documented them.  I made sure requirements were met.  Interestingly, this experience, which I thought would be quite boring and mechanical, fed my inner perfectionism.

Formal testing was not something I’d ever been asked to do before or ever imagined doing.  I’m quite sure it’s not in my job description.  However, having been called on to do testing , not once, but several times,  has given me an appreciation for the skill involved, for those who are experts at it, as well as for its importance and value to every digital project.

The most important things I’ve learned from my experiences as a tester that have helped me as a project manager:

• Clearly define how and what you are going to test based on client needs and how the final product will be used
• Include adequate time and resources for testing in your plan and estimate
• Line up testing resources (people, hardware and software) early
• Document meticulously

I know there’s a lot more to testing than I’ve experienced so far.  That’s why we have an entire discipline dedicated to testing and why I’m excited to dig in with the members of our testing team to share their approaches to and perspectives on testing and to show you what makes them passionate about their work. And— of course—why I’d rather have them lead and do the testing  on my projects!

Stay tuned for my upcoming posts this month for testers’ top tips, how to work best with a tester, tester’s pet peeves and more.

Sound like a plan?

If you are smart, the user test plan was carefully crafted to keep the user tester from finding all of the “I want this” and “we need this” quagmires that are nearly impossible to escape. Users have no concept of “requirements” and “scope creep.”

Acceptance—Not User Experience—Testing

This is acceptance testing and not user experience testing.

Why?

1. Test plans are procedure strait jackets.
2. The chosen few users are the cream of the crop who do things the right way.

Users, on the other hand, never follow procedures and they rarely do things the “right way.” Users don’t do things the “right way” even after they are in the role for six weeks and were taught how to “do the job” with less effort and less pain by the initiated. More to the point, users have no clue how things work so they experiment.

For example, a user calls the help desk to complain that her screen turned heather green and flashes magenta when she pushes any key. “It’s happening to everyone else,” she innocently continues.

The Help Desk jockey asks the universal question: “What did you do to just before the screen turned green and started flashing purple?”

The user replies, “I just went here and entered this and pressed the squirrelly little key up in the left hand corner of the keyboard and clicked the caps lock key.”

The Help Desk jockey wants to politely (politely only because he likes his job) say, “Don’t ever do that again.”

Instead he says, “I will escalate this to tier two support and they will get back to you someday.”

Tier two support sends the issue to tier three support who sends it to tier four support who sends it to tier five support. Tier five support sends it to the developer who calls you in desperation at 4:50 PM.

You drop the project you are working on to solve the riddle since it is a production issue. Meanwhile your deadline doesn’t change, so another night at the office looms in your immediate future.

A crazy example, but to all of us who have much testing experience, you know it is plausible.

The Dilemma

There is no way you are going to let one of those “crazy” users who cause all of the problems in your test lab. But you really want to protect your nights and evenings.

The Answer

Exploratory testing by a wizened tester.

Get out the user guide and start doing things, and when you see something that makes you think someone would want to know “what would happen if I…?”  Then do whatever the “if” is.

A wizened tester will learn the application, discover plenty of obscure bugs, find a lot of missed test conditions, and most importantly, learn to think like a user.

Now that is real user experience testing.

SOUND OFF: Are you guilty of recruiting the most savvy users for your user acceptance testing? What bugs might you catch if you had a “wizened tester” act as a real user might?

A Parable

Once upon a time, we have a software project that needs test automation.  Everyone on the team agrees that this is the thing to do.  The manager of this project is Bob.  He reviews the different test tools available, selects one and purchases several copies.  He assigns one of the team, Mary, the job of automating the tests.  Mary has many other responsibilities, but between these, she tries out the new tool.  She has trouble getting it to work with our product.  The tool is complicated and hard to configure.  She has to make several calls to the customer support line.  She eventually realizes that they need an expert to set it up correctly and resolve the problems.  After more phone calls to the vendor, they finally send an expert.  She arrives, figures out the problems and gets things working.  Excellent!  But many months have passed, and they still have no automation.  Mary refuses to work on the project any further, fearing that it will never be anything but a black hole.

Bob reassigns the project to Fred, who has recently been hired to test the software.  Fred has a recent degree in computer science and is hoping to use this job as a step up to something more challenging and rewarding.  Bob sends him to training so that he won’t give up in frustration the way Mary did.  Fred is very excited.  The testing is repetitive and boring so he is glad to be automating instead.  After a major release ships, he is allowed to work full time on test automation.  He is eager for a chance to prove that he can write sophisticated code.  He builds a testing library and designs some clever techniques that will support lots of tests.  It takes longer than planned, but he gets it working.  He uses the test suite on new builds and is actually able to find bugs with it.  Then Fred gets an opportunity for a development position and moves on, leaving his automation behind.

Jane gets the job of running Fred’s test suite.  The sparse documentation she finds doesn’t help much.  It takes a while for Jane to figure out how to run the tests.  She gets a lot of failures and isn’t sure if she ran the test correctly or not.  The error messages aren’t very helpful.  She digs deeper.  Some of the tests look like they were never finished.  Others have special setup requirements.  She updates the setup documentation.  She plugs away at it.  She finds that a couple of failures are actually due to regression bugs.  Everyone is happy that the test suite caught these.  She identifies things in the test suites that she’d like to change to make it more reliable, but there never seems to be the time.

The next release of the product has some major changes planned.  Jane soon realizes that the product changes break the automation.  Most of the tests fail.  Jane works on this for a while and then gets some help from others.  They realize that it’s going to take some major work to get the tests to run with the new product.  Eventually they do it.  The tests pass, and they ship the product.  The customers start calling right away.  The software doesn’t work.  They come to realize that they reworked some tests so that error messages were being ignored.  These tests actually failed, but a programming error had dismissed these errors.  The product is a failure.

The Problems

The story illustrates several problems that plague test automation projects:

Spare time test automation:  People are allowed to work on test automation on their own time or as a back burner project when the test schedule allows.  These keep it from getting the time and focus it needs.

Lack of clear goals:  There are many good reasons for doing test automation.  It can save time, make testing easier and improve the testing coverage.  It can also help keep testers motivated.  But it’s not likely to do all these things at the same time.  Different parties typically have different expectations.  These need to be stated, or else disappointment is likely.

Lack of experience:  Junior or less experienced developers trying to test their limits often tackle test automation projects.  The results are often difficult to maintain.

High turnover:  Test automation can take a while to learn.  When the turnover is high, you lose this experience as you might with most lengthy projects.

Reaction to desperation:  Problems are usually lurking in the software long before testing begins.  Testing brings them to light.  Testing is difficult enough in itself.  When testing is followed by testing and retesting of the repaired software, people can get worn down.  Will the testing ever end?  This desperation can become particularly severe when the schedule has dictated that the software should be ready now.  If only it weren’t for all the testing!  In this environment, test automation may be a ready answer, but it may not be the best.  It can be more of a wish than a realistic proposal.

Reluctance to think about testing:  Many find automating a product more interesting than testing it.  Some automation projects provide convenient cover stories for why their contributors aren’t more involved in the testing.  Rarely does the outcome contribute much to the test effort.

Technology focus:  How the testing can be automated is a technologically interesting puzzle; but one can lose sight of whether the results meet the testing needs.

Labor intensive:  Testing the functionality with more test cases becomes laborious as the functionality grows.  Increases in testing must clearly follow the rules of dedicated change control management.

In my next post, we’ll discuss some of the ways to mitigate these issues, saving your project team considerable frustration and anxiety.

SOUND OFF: What parts of this story sound familiar to you? What kinds of strategies have you put into place to prevent this?

Developers and testers play critical but contradictory roles that often cause heated discussions and a general attitude of mutual disdain. But it is not necessary for developers and testers to butt heads. The first thing they must recognize is that the goals of developers are opposite the goals of testers.

Developers and Testers Have Conflicting Goals

To a developer, the goal is to have as few bugs as possible in their code. Developers dream the impossible dream of bug-free code. Bugs make life hard on the developer because bugs interrupt what the developers are working on:

1. It knocks them out of “The Zone” where developers do their best work, and often the developer feels physical (or at least it feels physical to them) pain when they are knocked out of “The Zone.”
2. It messes up their schedule. Developers often skip lunch or work overtime to keep up with their deliverables and fix the bug, unit test it, and move it to test.
3. It damages their reputation.
4. Worse yet, their manager might not understand quality and use the number of bugs found in a developer’s code in their performance review.

Testers have a totally different, and often incomprehensible to developers, world view. Testers measure their competence on the number of bugs they identify. To a tester, the most obscure (and often pointless as far as the developer sees it) bugs are the best bugs.

Developers offer no value to the universe (professionally) other than creating good (say “bug free”) code. Testers on the other hand are worthless (as testers) if they do not identify bugs. So to a developer a bug is something to mourn over while the same bug brings great rejoicing to the tester.

It’s Possible to Have a Happy, Synergistic Relationship

It is possible to take these opposing dynamics and weld them into an efficient application development machine that pumps out code that makes everyone happy. However, in most cases it is the testers who must take the lead in creating the synergy because they are always the ones bearing the “bad news.”

Testers can help build this synergy by showing the developers three things:

1. You like him or her (professionally).
2. You recognize how good he or she is at producing good code and effectively eliminating defects himself or herself.
3. You want to help.

The first two are relatively easy compared to the third.

To show the developer that you are his or her friend you must:

1. Acknowledge that the developers’ self-image and contentment are inversely related to the number of bugs in their code.
2. Present bugs as a normal expectation that does not reflect on his or her ability or efforts. This means ALWAYS explaining the bugs you identify before, or at least as soon as, you document them. It is a common courtesy. It creates a professional bond as you and the developer discuss the code and your expectations.
3. Try to show the developer “bugs” before they become “Bugs.” If possible, get involved in code reviews. Remember: as a tester, you see the code in ways the developer never can see it. The tester focuses on risks and potentials for defects. Developers, if they are truly honest, are looking for ways to create esthetic code. The idea of things like risk avoidance seldom entering a coders mind when they are coding is almost unheard of. When developers get risk focused they either are driven to near insanity by the insanity of the BAs, or they become great testers. Keep this in mind. When  tester loses his sixth sense for risks he needs to become a great coder.
4. Share with the developer how and where you look for bugs when you test. A good developer will take what you show them and add it to his or her perspective. That will help the developer avoid some of the pitfalls in coding and prevent many of the common bugs. The fewer common bugs, the more time you have to look for the obscure ones that tend to cause system crashes in production. And as icing on the cake, the developer’s sense of self-worth and contentment soar.

Best of all, a happy working relationship helping developers create bug-less (that is, less bugs than before) code will give you more insights that will enable you to find even more bugs. So if I help the coders create fewer bugs I will find more bugs.

Just remember to tell the developer about the bugs before his or her manager sees them.

SOUND OFF: Is there an antagonistic relationship between developers and testers in your organization? Or do the two groups have a synergistic relationship?

A business analysts (BA) brings much needed perspectives on the business processes and data flows that feed a digital solution. They act as liaisons between our clients’ businesses and our delivery teams, facilitating important voice-of-business conversations from the client side of the equation, just as the user-experience (UX) designers and usability testers are gathering and analyzing voice-of-customer from the end-user (consumer) side.

Here are three of many opportunities for fruitful collaboration with a BA on a UX project:

1. Mapping business requirements to UX requirements

As responsible UX designers and developers, we gather requirements to help ensure that the digital solutions we build will meet the goals and needs of site visitors. We are, after all, user advocates.

Business analysts are advocates for the business. A good BA can help us marry our user-centric concerns to the complexities of business processes and technologies.  In “3 Killer Business Analyst Techniques,” Dan Ford writes about the importance of clear current- and future-state diagrams, thorough SWOT analyses, and RACI diagrams. Knowing where you are compared to where you want to go, being able to weigh potential risks against possible opportunities, and understanding client (and consultant) team members’ roles and responsibilities are key to a project’s overall success. BAs are adept at gathering and documenting this kind of information because it’s the lens through which they see the world — just as understanding the impact of clear branding, the mind-sets of mobile users, and the subtleties of search engine optimization are lenses through which UX designers see their world.

2. Charting data movement

The design is on-brand and on-trend with the market. The content is selected, written, and approved. The user experience has been tested using a variety of prototypes. You’re ready to start moving from development to production. Except for that little flaw in how you thought the data was going to feed that one page…

Integrating complex systems with web-based experiences is increasingly becoming the norm. Personalized web pages and digital portals are de rigeur. And who better to help untangle the web of data and code and user requirements than a business analyst — many of whom have programming backgrounds? On several of the projects I’ve worked on over the years, business analysts have provided crucial insight not only into where the data came from but also how it got there: which interfaces it needed to pass through, the variables passed along with the target data, and the format in which it would display once it arrived. They helped us discover constraints, mitigate risks, and understand how to shape the data so that it would provide the user experience we were seeking.

3. Designing content management workflow

While UX designers and developers are greatly concerned with the needs and perspectives of the people who will be using the site in its final state, site visitors are not the only “end users” when it comes to content management. If your digital content will be created, stored, or published through a content management system (CMS), it’s worth involving a business analyst in your project. For many of our clients, content creation, editing, and approval are very manual processes — paper-driven, in other words. However, for all their lack of technological coolness, those processes are still very complex.

As Kristi Dwenger-Bourgeois points out in “Analysis Identity Crisis,” BAs can be instrumental in ferreting out how people do their work. She writes, “[W]e love digging in, rolling up our sleeves, and figuring it out.  We  relish in introducing ourselves to total strangers over the phone or email (or Instant Messenger or even Twitter!).” BAs often speak the client’s language and move easily throughout the intricacies of an organization, documenting requirements and forging important relationships as they go. They can help ease our clients’ minds, simply by making them feel heard and respected. I’ve found this to be a great advantage when approaching the (often scary) undertaking of changing how people do their work — moving from risk-fraught manual workflows to more consistent, automated ones.

A final observation

As our UX projects begin to touch more systems and incorporate more complexity, we don’t always know what we don’t know. And our clients don’t always know what to point out to us — until it’s too late. While I think that for more traditional, straightforward digital projects — a stand-alone, hard-coded, HTML-based website with no links to other systems – Jan Evans might be right: A thoughtful, analytical Project Manager or an Experience Architect might be enough to do the analysis and requirements-gathering necessary to successfully deliver the work. But as the digital solutions we build start to rub up against (or even integrate with!) critical business technologies, bringing a business analyst onto the team to advocate for the voice-of-business to balance the UX voice-of-customer is a wise choice.

SOUND OFF: What are some more ways you might involve a business analyst in your digital projects?

At the end of the project, while our colleagues may have fond memories of the great work that was accomplished, what is left of the Analyst’s contribution is what was written down. Four releases from now, no one will be able to remember the awesome story planning session that led the team to the amazing backlog. All that is left is the set of user stories on the board. No one will remember the complicated effort it took to build the use case model; they will only be able to see what the use case flows tell us about the functional requirements for the system. And, trust me, if any of those flows have grammar or spelling errors, we leave the impression that we are sloppy. And if we are sloppy on this, we must have been just as sloppy putting together the use case model! Nothing can derail a requirements review like a discussion about the grammar used in the artifacts. You will quickly lose focus on the goal of the review and waste vast amounts of time.

I know Analysts who are amazing facilitators and terrible writers. I know Analysts who are terrible facilitators and amazing writers. In my hiring process, I need to be able to identify the Analysts who can do both. Usually, I can gauge a candidate’s face-to-face, facilitation and verbal presentation skills during an interview. To help me understand where a candidate is on the writing side, I request a writing sample. When I read that sample, I look at it from the perspective of my sixth grade teacher, Sister Theresa Clare. Here are some things she would tell me: “Does a comma belong there?”  “Does that verb agree with that subject?”  “Is that the proper use of ‘there’ instead of ‘their’?” Clearly, automatic spell checkers have turned your brain to mush!”  (Okay, she didn’t tell me that. We didn’t have automatic spell checkers when I was in sixth grade. You get the point…)

I know, I know, “What’s your point? You want me to write like a sixth grader?” If that’s what it takes to make you a good writer, yes! Actually, what I want is for Analysts to pay attention. The words on the page shape the solution, and yes, the correct placement of commas can make a difference in that solution. Remember that bad writing leads to bad requirements and bad requirements lead to bad solutions. Who wants that? If you feel like you need a refresher on sixth-grade grammar, try Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. And of course, there is always my favorite exercise: Add punctuation to this string of words: “woman without her man is nothing.” See how different punctuation creates different meaning?

SOUND OFF: Have you had enough of poorly written requirements? Tell us about it. (Oh yeah, and we can help with that…)

Over the years, having been on multiple projects, I have captured many quotes from each and every one. Some original, some not, but all meaningful in their own way. So, for this blog post, I perused through the extensive material in my quote books and pulled 10 memorable ones pertaining to analysis, many of which could pertain to providing professional services in general as well, I suppose.

1. “Seek first to understand before being understood.”
2. “Knowledge speaks, wisdom listens.” ~ Jimi Hendrix
3. “Clarity is key.”
4. “In terms of asking questions, I plead guilty. I ask a heck of a lot of questions. That’s my job.” ~ Dick Cheney
5. “Easy reading is damn hard writing.” ~ Hawthorne
6. “Always remember your audience and setting.”
7. “Personal relationships are the fertile soil from which advancement, success, and achievement in real life grows.” ~ Ben Stein
8. “Nothing great can come without enthusiasm.” ~ Emerson
9. “Be curious, not judgmental.” ~ Whitman
10. “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” ~ Mike Tyson

SOUND OFF: Do you have any memorable quotes you keep in your repertoire?

Using these techniques allows BAs to:

• Give sponsors and stakeholders a straightforward, easily understood view of their business processes;
• Provide meaningful information that will aid customers with achieving their objectives;
• Furnish members of the project team and others with their roles, tasks, and levels of responsibility.

An added benefit is the information generated by these techniques is valuable whether the customer is using a traditional or an agile lifecycle.

1. State Diagrams

Humans are visual learners and State Diagrams (sometimes called Process Models) provide an excellent method of giving sponsors and stakeholders easily digestible views of their company’s business processes. Horizontal swim lanes help team members visualize processes as they flow between the responsibilities of different actors.

To make them easier to understand, keep state diagrams at a high level of abstraction and don’t inject too much complexity into them all at once. Complexity should be accumulative as the reader begins with the highest level process and then drills down through successive parent and child processes.

As presented in the order flow state diagram below, a customer places an order with the call center and the order is shown moving out of the call center and into different stations within the warehouse. Off-page connectors are used to point readers to other state diagrams that provide greater detail for each of those process threads.

Why are State Diagrams a killer technique? Being able to easily visualize current and future processes enables customers to better express their needs and that ability translates into better requirements. This format can also be referred to by cross-functional teams throughout the life of the project to ensure everyone remains in agreement with the stated objective,

2. SWOT

This venerable, widely-used technique focuses on factors governing the operation of most companies: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. SWOT is typically employed during enterprise-level initiatives such as strategic planning, evaluation of competitors, product development, and so on.  In this context, SWOT is a powerful analytical tool that’s used during group brainstorming activities because it emphasizes prospects and problems from four different perspectives internal and external to a company:

Internal

• Strengths
  • What does the company do well?
  • What advantages does the company hold over its competitors?
• Weaknesses
  • What can be done better to increase the company’s market share?
  • What problems can the company avoid?

External

• Opportunities
  • What new developments in the market benefit the company?
  • What new technologies can the company implement to increase market share?
• Threats
  • What obstacles stand in the company’s way?
  • Are changes in the market, technology, or other issues threatening the company’s position?

In another context, SWOT can also be used by the Business Analyst to capture notes from each of the four perspectives. In any meeting where crucial issues are being discussed, include the appropriate content beneath the S, W, O, or T classifications. By grouping notes in this manner, Business Analysts can derive a greater understanding of the problem under discussion.

Why is SWOT a killer technique? SWOT focuses on concrete internal and external factors that aid or prevent a company from achieving its objectives. And this is true regardless of whether a SWOT analysis is being applied to a company, a product (new or existing), or a competitor because it delivers meaningful information that helps to ensure a better strategic fit that matches the customer’s future goals.

3. RACI

Typically used by Business Analysts and Project Managers during stakeholder analysis, the RACI table acts as a responsibility assignment matrix which identifies the association between a project’s tasks (on the vertical axis) and its roles (on the horizontal axis).

As demonstrated by the diagram below, each task is given a unique number and name down the right side of the RACI matrix and project roles are defined along the top. The intersecting cells define the level of responsibility a role has for a specific task.

The RACI participation types are defined as:

• Responsible: A single person (or possibly a team) that’s on-the-hook for getting work accomplished. There should always be at least one role with a participation type of responsible;
• Accountable: This role is answerable for the project’s overall success and must ensure the completed deliverable is correct;
• Consulted: These are typically SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) who are sought out by team members because of their high level of expertise in specific areas related to the project;
• Informed: These roles can be filled by those who need to be kept up-to-date on the progress of tasks and deliverables or individuals or groups that have some dependency on the completion of a task.

Why is RACI a killer technique? The RACI responsibility assignment matrix holds Stakeholders accountable for their assigned project participation roles. It also continues to remind Stakeholders of their roles throughout the life of the project and can be referenced should confusion or disagreements occur over roles or assignments.

Conclusion

Business Analysts are always expected to deliver accurate information in a timely manner to their sponsors and stakeholders. But much of the time, BAs are buried beneath the weight of so much information that it becomes a time-consuming task to provide meaningful content in an appropriate context to different consumers. This is further complicated when moving between traditional and agile life-cycles where each approach places its own unique spin on project deliverables.

The techniques described in this article give the Business Analyst three powerful methods of delivering meaningful information that will be useful to project sponsors and stakeholders regardless of the life-cycle methodology in use.

SOUND OFF:  What killer techniques are in your analyst’s toolbox? Are there any variations of the techniques described in this article or in the BABoK? We’d love to hear from you!

Not so coincidentally, there’s usually an entirely new crop of tech companies and providers supporting these various trend niches with the attendant “gurus,” research briefs and industry writers touting the same.  The hot topics today, amongst others, include marketing automation, content marketing and mobile optimization, with yet others looming omnipresent on the horizon.

While all trends have an elemental importance to them, not all trends are created equal.  No company (that I’m aware of) has spontaneously combusted because they didn’t have a Facebook page (or a blog, for that matter).  Yet, “big data,” an unwieldy term with an even less user-friendly definition, feels like one of the trends, at least as it relates to web analytics, that has an opportunity to transcend hype and confusion to become something meaningful for marketers.

Explaining the Unwieldy

To make “big data” understandable, I’m going to forsake its still very much evolving definition (at its heart, it means finding correlations in massive amounts of data bringing John Nash-like skills to the corner office) and focus in on what I think it means from a web analytics perspective – a much more granular application relevant to marketers and those involved in marketing analysis.

By way of analogy, a decade ago, the holy grail for IT Managers was, “A single pane of glass” – a quirky euphemism that described a single access point to view (from a computer monitor) an entire company infrastructure in real time, usually with gauges, red/yellow/green lights, and various and sundry other visual geegaws.

If the email server went down, the “single pane of glass” of visual monitoring metaphors would flash red before the end-user calls started hitting the help desk.

Personal Financial Health at a Glance

On a more personal level, when Mint.com came out in 2006, the service provided a way to incorporate all of a user’s financial information together– bank activities for checking and savings, credit cards, investment, and loan transactions in one spot with an ability to track and set goals, all underpinned with clean, visually striking graphics – making it, literally, easy to understand what’s going on with your money.

Suddenly, users of Mint noticed the leak in their checking account that went to Starbucks as a mindless daily expense, seeing the cumulative dent a daily caffeine fix could bring.

The Dashboard

By comparison to our analogies, marketing analysis is still reasonably isolated and just as much art (qualitative) as it is science (quantitative).  Reports come in from various channels – direct mail spreadsheets via email, Google Analytics data is in one spot, PPC data in another, display advertising data in yet another.   Social media analytics is from one provider and social listening from another.  Often (not always, but frequently), these bits of data are viewed in silos without looking for co-mingling interrelations.

Big data, from the viewpoint of the marketer, and web analytics, therefore means pulling all of this data into one spot (usually called a dashboard) for a holistic (and visually graphic) view on marketing campaigns, and their interrelations.

The promise then is not seeing where we’re spending too much money on Starbucks; it’s isolating that return on investment (ROI) is a metric that can now become truly meaningful.  Or, as a BtoB Research Insights study published earlier in 2013 notes, “Tracking marketing ROI via technology is the most transformative factor marketers face today.”

What’s Next?

The market for web analytics and dashboarding in 2013 is incredibly messy.  Dashboarding solutions are kneeling down to the web analytics market from the enterprise Big Data space, social analytics are still in relative infancy, SEO providers are trying to lean into web analytics as their niche legitimizes, Google is trying to get into the enterprise web analytics space, tag management for tracking code snippets is evolving into the hands of marketers and away from developers, and, frankly, most hardcore users of web analytics haven’t gotten as far into the business value via meaningful tracking of KPIs as they could.

Yet, the market will continue to expand apace, perhaps chaotically.  However, out of every bit of chaos comes order and I strongly believe that in just a few scant years, every marketing organization will not only have at least one dashboard governing their marketing activity, but they will be a mission critical analysis and decision-making tool.

Most marketing departments aren’t ready for dashboards yet, so in order to prepare, you can begin by identifying internal skills gaps, and conducting knowledge management to support learning around what’s to come.  Below are a few resources as you begin your investigation.

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics (Link initiates download)

Google Analytics blog

Alltop List of Analytics Blogs

SOUND OFF: Is Big Data, scaled down to marketing and analytics for dashboarding, a coming reality or more over-wrought hype?

Here’s the rest of that interview, with more on why Cincinnati is a market to check out if you have the entrepreneurial instinct and a startup mentality.

JE: How do you think this focus on startup development will influence Cincinnati’s overall tech community?

JH: Cintrifuse’s purpose is to create, coordinate, and enable a sustainable innovation ecosystem that allows Cincinnati to compete globally for innovation-driven startup businesses and jobs. We plan to build on the progress and successes over the last ten years and find ways to improve collaboration rather than replicate the terrific job that several groups are already doing to serve startups. Cintrifuse intends to increase the number of venture-capital worthy companies in the region and significantly increase the amount of capital available to high-potential firms.

You could think of Cintrifuse as a three-legged stool, supported by Place, Access, and Funds. Collaboration works best when you have a sense of place. For this reason Cintrifuse will have new space in Over-The-Rhine that will be available to startups, investors, and other incubators. It will be an open space containing design elements from some of the best tech incubators in the world.

Access refers to the programs we will have to interact with our major corporations and institutions in town to facilitate and accelerate innovation. Our local leaders believe strongly in the vision for our region and the role that they can play in supporting early stage innovation. This model has not been used before in a programmatic way anywhere in the country.

Finally, the third leg is Funds. We will manage a Fund of Funds of $50 million to $100 million. The sources of the funds are investors and strategic pillar companies in town. We will use these funds to invest in 8 to 10 venture capital firms throughout the country. By doing so, we will be attracting more capital to the region.  These venture firms will be drawn to Cincinnati because of our success and the Access we provide them and their companies to our region’s best organizations. The goal is to provide a financial return plus encourage more activity. It will leverage our dollars to access more capital, which could lead to a ratio of 3 dollars coming in to Cincinnati for every 1 dollar we invest.

JE: What kinds of opportunities will this open up for college students and other area tech professionals?  

JH: If we are successful, I believe that we will create a more synchronized start-up ecosystem. This would, in essence, provide a roadmap for success for college students and other tech professionals. Access to support, funding, mentoring, and space will be streamlined. The community will have a more cohesive and collaborative approach to community and economic development, and the network will be more robust. All of these attributes would make our region more desirable for recent grads and tech professionals.

JE: What impact do you think this will have on Cincinnati for keeping young talent and attracting those outside of Cincinnati to the region? Why should young entrepreneurs or those looking for employment in tech look at Cincinnati?

JH: We believe that the action items that we have outlined will lead to continued success and growth in the region. That means that the incubators and accelerators in the region will become even more active and the universities in the region will become even more engaged. And that means that the companies, funds, and startups in the region will realize continued growth. These scenarios point to job creation, a growing scene, increased quality of life, and in general terms a more robust environment within which we can live and work.  That bodes well for our region as we look to attracting young talent, especially from outside the region.

A Welcome Addition

We welcome Jake back “home” with open arms and look forward to seeing his expertise and influence help put Cincinnati on the map as a premiere startup city and a model for others to follow.

But since this month’s blog theme is “Analysis,” and because I’m on the Blog Squad and was requested to write this blog, it’s time for me to come out of my BA fog and stir up some discussion. Why, if BAs are so important in software development projects, don’t we have them on our Digital Solutions project teams? Our projects very often involve building some sort of software solution.

If you’re from the IT side, your response might be something like this:

“That’s crazy.  How do you manage requirements without a BA?”

But if you’re from the Digital Solutions side, your response will probably be more like this:

“We don’t need one. We have a project manager to keep us on track with the client’s business goals and requirements.”

What’s the difference?

• A project manager manages the project, including initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, controlling, and closing the project to meet the project requirements.
• A business analyst works as a liaison among stakeholders to understand the structure, policies, and operations of an organization and recommend solutions that enable the organization to meet its requirements.

Both a business analyst and a project manager play important leadership roles on a project. The project manager is responsible for leading the team in delivering the solution for the client. The business analyst is tasked with ensuring the solution meets the client’s business need and aligns with both business and project objectives.

Like IT projects, our Digital Solutions projects have requirements that have to be defined and managed.  Not unlike IT projects, our Digital Solutions projects also have multiple stakeholders with needs to be met. And, in the same way as IT projects, our Digital Solutions projects demand that requirements align with stakeholder needs.

So, do the PM and BA roles actually intersect?

Our Digital Solutions team processes have evolved from an agency model where in many cases, our project managers are more like account managers who have a business leadership role on the project.  They are often involved in proposal development and have a strong understanding of the client’s business problem. They have developed the project plan from which they will lead the team in developing a solution to the client’s problem. They serve as the primary contact for the business stakeholders and are focused on the big picture of meeting the client needs, as well as on the details required to get there.

If you’re still thinking “that doesn’t cover it, you need a BA,” read on.

If the project requires designing a user interface, for example, it’s the Experience Architect who is gathering the business requirements necessary to create wireframes to meet user needs. The wireframes document the website’s (or app’s) functionality.  The art director, content strategist, and front-end developer also have input into this documentation. When creating copy, designing pages, or developing code, this documentation serves as the blueprint (containing the requirements) for all to follow and from which to build the finished product.

So, while there may be no “business analyst” on our team, there is still business analysis in our process. Digital Solutions works as a team to define and manage requirements, and we have proven many times that this “BA in disguise” can be a successful approach.  But given the ever-increasing technical complexity of developing effective marketing solutions, are our Digital Solutions projects becoming complex enough to warrant the integration of a BA into the team?

SOUND OFF: What do you think? Should Digital Solutions projects require a BA—YAY or NAY?

Find out who the “I Think I Know It All” types are so you can avoid asking them your questions, lest you go down the path to doom and destruction along with them.

Find the true “Know It Alls” as soon as you can. They can save your neck faster than getting a cheeseburger from McDonald’s. (People my age remember when you could get a McDonald’s cheeseburger faster than you could pay for it, but that was before Happy Meals).

Know It Alls Let You Know They Know It ALL

Unfortunately, “‘Know It Alls” and “Think They Know It Alls” both tell us so. This why it is important to find out the difference.

True “Know It Alls”‘ do it for self-defense; the others do it for their image’s sake. Unless you figured it out by osmosis, you have been thrown out of the “Know It Alls”‘ cubes more than once when you asked a simple question. “Think They Know It Alls” won’t throw you out. They are looking for adulation. This is the best indicator of which type they are.

Don’t Go Back Unless They Threw You Out

Why does a “Know It All” throw you out? Simple—you are wasting his time since you won’t understand it anyway. The “Know It All” learned this by experience. Besides, it took a lot of time and effort to learn what she does and some little shrimp wants it for nothing.

The Know It All’s Fatal Flaw

“Know It Alls” are disenfranchised teachers. Deep inside, there lies hidden an imprisoned and frustrated teacher trying to escape. That’s why they throw “askers” to the lions. They don’t have time to answer questions.

However, they love students with a greater passion than food. (That’s an exaggeration, but it serves the point.)

The Lion Tamer’s Rule Number One

Never ask a “Know It All” a question. A simple “What time is it?” may find you plastered against a cube wall three rows away.

Instead, ask the “Know It All” to teach you.

“I am stuck on this and I just can’t get a handle on it, and it is important for me to figure it out today. Can you explain it to me?” will get you the answer as quick as you can get a pizza delivered by a pizza man who had his drivers license revoked. But it will be the right answer well explained.

*** WARNING WARNING WARNING ***

Never lie to a “Know It All”! If one of them finds you did, all you will ever get out of them is, like a dragon who found a jewel missing, a consuming fire blown into your face.

 *** End of Warning ***

“Think They Know It Alls,” on the other hand, aren’t bothered by lies, so long as the lies don’t actually hurt them.

Be Prepared For a Full Explanation

Be prepared for a full explanation (complaining about how long it takes to explain it to you or trying to rush them is the same thing as lying).

Take notes.

If you aren’t actually impressed, act like you are.

Tell someone in earshot of the “Know It All” how smart they are and you have an inside source for all time.

Once you become their student, if they don’t know the answer to your questions (I mean an explanation of the answer), they won’t bluff but they won’t rest either until they find the answer from a fellow “Know It All”.

A “Know It All” will go to extremes for the opportunity to explain something to a learner.

This is good news if you are willing to be a learner to get the right answer.

SOUND OFF: Have you cultivated a relationship with a “Know It All”? How has that relationship been mutually beneficial?

“Aikido” translates as follows:

ai: “Joining,” “unifying,” or “harmonizing.” This is the part that gives aikido its dance-like quality, where attacker and defender seem to move together in harmony.

ki: “Energy” or “life-force.” Ki is the Japanese word for the more familiar Chinese “chi,” which you might recognize from t’ai chi, another martial art.

do: “Way” or “path.” In Japanese, this is a beautiful, multi-faceted word that incorporates practice, training, and a state of mind. A way of being, not just a way of doing.

Put back together again, the word aikido refers to a practice of unifying or harmonizing energy.

In my work as consultant, I’ve had clients whose dispositions have ranged from engaged to accepting, from resistant to adversarial. I employ a number of strategies and tactics to make our interactions fruitful, and I’ve found that consciously applying aikido as a lens adds another dimension to my consulting.

Since English translation reverses the order of the word, I’ll start at the end.

do: Finding the Way

I nervously take my place on the mat, sitting on my knees and facing the front of the room.  I bow first to the photo of Morihei Ueshiba (O Sensei, or “Great Teacher”), the founder of Aikido. I then turn and bow to my teachers, who are lined up along the right edge of the mat. I turn and bow last to the person who is taking ukemi for me during my test—Scott, who will attack me, providing the energy that will allow me to demonstrate that I know the first-level techniques that will mark this first rite of passage for me in the dojo.

All of this ritual feels very foreign and formal to me. But in order to be a good dojo-member, I need to adhere to these forms, show my teachers and fellow practitioners that I respect them, the dojo where I train, and the art of aikido as a whole.

My clients’ cultures sometimes feel just as foreign to me. Their traditions, rituals, and processes feel strange and are sometimes frustrating to follow. But a successful consultant knows that understanding and operating within a client’s culture is the quickest way to become a valued team member—and earn the team’s trust.

Consultants have to find the middle way between offering well-considered, expert recommendations for change and respecting their clients’ ways of doing things. If you don’t find that balance, you end up with resistance, which is wasted energy—not to mention detrimental to the project and potentially demoralizing for the humans involved.

ki: Letting the Energy Flow

It’s after class, and my friend Faunette, who also holds a black belt in karate, is helping me drill on some basic aikido techniques. I am taking the part of uke (the attacker), and I move smartly toward her, my hand raised to chop her on the noggin. She steps into me, her own arm raising—and stiffening—as she blocks my cut. “Dang it!” she exclaims. “I blocked you! My karate training is getting in the way…”

Where some of the other martial arts, such as karate, employ techniques meant to block an attack, aikido seeks to use the attacker’s energy, join with it, mold it into a defense. This requires harmonizing with uke and blending or synchronizing one’s movements in such a way that uke’s own energy fuels the defense. If you block the energy, you waste it—along with the opportunities it might have presented for changing the interaction.

Many of my clients have, at some point or another during a project, put up their figurative arms to block something they found threatening. Change isn’t easy. Forward momentum can be blocked by numerous things: Budgets, traditions, politics, fears about surrendering control of something, and so on. But I’ve found that perceived blocks often create an energy of their own that can—if I stay relaxed and focused—provide a way forward through difficulty. Often this means joining with the energy (finding out more about an underlying fear, creatively adjusting scope, providing a little extra context or support to someone struggling with a recommendation) in order to move a project in a positive direction.

ai: Just Love Them a Little

Joe-Sensei demonstrates a technique, reminding us, as he moves through it, to be responsive rather than oppositional: “Stay relaxed. Notice how uke moves, and move with them, guide them, so that you don’t injure them. You need to take care of uke.”

And that’s where the ai in aikido comes in: You have to love your opponent a little. Your aim should not only be to protect yourself but also to treat your opponent with care. Avoid injuring him, but make sure you are containing (or at least guiding) the situation as best you can. And recognize that sometimes “containing” the situation means not struggling against it.

Working effectively with clients requires understanding not only their businesses, but also their motivations, pressures, challenges. Sometimes we can influence the direction in which things are going; sometimes we can’t. But we can always choose how we respond—and struggling against circumstances is a waste of energy. I know. I’ve wasted plenty of energy on struggling during the course of my career.

By staying relaxed, watching the direction things are taking, and engaging compassionately—remembering to love my clients, just a little—I can often help my team see and respond to things in ways that acknowledge the difficulty without creating conflict around it. This often results in better buy-in, calmer problem-solving, and happier clients.

Sometimes surrendering is winning

Staying with a challenge and responding to it harmoniously and consciously is usually a good approach. But aikido has also taught me that sometimes you just have to throw your opponent to the mat. Knowing when to move from containment to control is also an important skill—but knowing when to move from attack to surrender is even more so. And it’s one that takes years to master—both in aikido (as I’ve discovered) as well as in consulting. Sometimes “tapping out”—tapping the mat to indicate that you “give”—is the only way to prevent injury. And that’s true of client relationships, as well. Bowing out gracefully, knowing when you need to shift your focus to things you can influence and away from those you can’t, provides just as many opportunities for improving and learning as does “winning” a fight.

Knowing when to surrender is the skill that differentiates the master from the merely competent.

SOUND OFF: What approaches from elsewhere in your life shape you as a consultant? Or, if you’re hiring consultants, what shapes how you evaluate their effectiveness?

A  friend of mine, Jake Hodesh, was recently hired as the Director of Mentoring by Cintrifuse, one of those accelerators. He’s responsible for developing Cintrifuse’s mentoring program, which will involve recruiting mentors and connecting them with Cintrifuse’s client companies. Cintrifuse provides office space to entrepreneurs and connects them with potential investors

Jake grew up in Cincinnati and has most recently been leading an innovation hub in Savannah, GA. Over the last 7 years, he has been very involved in developing and producing innovative, creative and successful community programs in Savannah.

I had an opportunity to connect with Jake to get his take on what excites him most about Cincinnati’s startup community and how it could transform Cincinnati over time.

JE: How do you think the Cincinnati startup community compares to those in other areas around the country?

JH: Cincinnati is well positioned to compete globally for innovation-driven business creation. There is world-class talent in this city from our universities and corporations that lead the world in their fields. We have many key elements in place and a strong foundation that has been building over the past 10 to 15 years. However, we are missing a few critical elements, the starkest of which is that Cincinnati lags behind other similar cities in terms of the flow of venture capital into the region. Cleveland and Pittsburgh received $2.5 billion and nearly $1 billion respectively in a recent three-year period compared to just over $100 million for Cincinnati. So, local entrepreneurs need more sources of that important growth capital fuel.

JE: How do you think all that’s going on in high tech in Cincinnati will transform Cincinnati’s reputation? Do you think it could ever become known as “Cinci-con Valley?”

JH: If you look at the geographies that have historically produced centers of innovation, like Silicon Valley or Boston, it was based on the proximity of three components: large companies, universities, and sources of capital. Cincinnati has two out of three. We have more patents per employee than Cleveland, Columbus, and Pittsburgh. Research spending at Children’s Hospital and University of Cincinnati totals $450 million. We have many support organizations in town to serve entrepreneurs and a strong pipeline of young, complementary talent that is entrepreneurial, creative, and technical. Cincinnati has a growing and increasingly active community for early stage incubation. Groups like The Brandery, UpTech, Queen City Angels, and CincyTech provide programming and funding for startups. Recent growth in seed-stage capital investments far exceeds the national average growth rate. Finally, recent successes such as Akebia and AssureRx that have received later-stage funding have attracted national sources of capital.

JE: Apart from resources such as Cintrifuse and other local and regional startup incubators, why do you think Cincinnati is such a good hub for startups?

JH: The barrier to entry in this market is low for startups here: the cost of living in the region is very reasonable, the talent within the region is incredible, and access to the top consumer goods companies is better here than anywhere in world. This is a handsome equation for success.

JE: What does Cincinnati need to improve to foster more tech startups?

JH: We need to improve the collaboration of the organizations that serve the startup community. We need to make it easier for entrepreneurs to navigate the process. If we can connect promising new startups with our major institutions, we will accelerate growth and in turn attract more capital into the region.

JE: What do you envision as the short- and long-term impacts of what’s happening now in Cincy’s startup community?

JH: I would suggest that the short-term impacts would be the growing pains that we will have to fight through as we aim towards a more community-wide collaborative approach. That’s going to be tough, but it has to happen. The long-term impact that we will realize is far reaching: increased employment numbers, higher wages paid in the region, redevelopment of Over-the-Rhine, new restaurants, coffee shops, and other quality-of-life indicators—all moving Cincinnati in a positive direction.

To Be Continued

This is pretty exciting stuff for our community.  If you have the entrepreneurial instinct and a startup mentality, Cincinnati is certainly a market you’ll want to check out. In my next post, Jake talks more about how this new focus on startup development will influence our overall tech community. Stay tuned!

Imagine this. You set out to redo your old kitchen cabinets. Grand undertaking that will look absolutely great when finished. You measure the space throughout your kitchen, you pick out the cabinets, hardware, etc., you hire a contractor to install them, and when finished, guess what? They look absolutely great! Only one problem: they do not fit your everyday needs. The tall glasses you were given as a gift do not fit anywhere because the height between the shelves is not enough in any of the cabinets. The Tupperware you use on a daily basis fall out of the shelf every time you open the door because the cabinet you have to put them in is not deep enough. To set the table, you need to go to three different places because you could not put the plates, the glasses, and your silverware in close proximity to each other. You get the point. The cabinets, however, look great and all your friends cannot stop complimenting you about them.

What went wrong? What you should have done differently? In an overly simplistic way, let me offer you this: first, you should take an inventory of what you need to store. Second, you should observe and note down how you use your cabinets on a daily basis. Third, you should also note down if you are planning on making changes to your everyday use of the cabinets. Notice I am saying to note these things down. It is not enough to think about them and keep them in your mind as you go about your project. There is value in seeing things on paper or on a screen (whatever your method of capturing information). Things look different and they are more real. Once you are done with these three steps, then you start designing to fit the needs you have identified. The rest of the steps are pretty much the same as before, and the end result is not only cabinets that look great but also cabinets that are functional for your way of living.

What does all this have to do with analysis in software development? The same principles apply. Would we jump in and build software without figuring out what is already there and what is really needed? Would we, instead, take the necessary time to understand the problem first, determine possible solutions, assess the risks and benefits of each, and plan everything out before we start building? Consider one more thing. Returning to the kitchen cabinets example, what if after having spent tens of thousands of dollars replacing the cabinets, you find out that the only thing the old cabinets needed was a fresh coat of varnish?

Next time you need to do a project, at home or at work, take the time to do the proper analysis before you jump into it. The results will be better and you will not have to rely on luck for them to turn out just okay. You will end up with what you really need and it will cost you a fraction of what it would have cost you had you not done your due diligence. It is worth it.

SOUND OFF: Have you suffered the consequences of inadequate up-front analysis in home or work projects?

Give us an example of how an analyst’s work really helped your process. 

After we both reviewed a requirements document, a developer and I each had a different interpretation of the software requirements. He saw “orange” and I saw “red.” After several discussions in which we each tried to convince the other of our own interpretation of the document, we contacted the analyst responsible for the requirements. The requirements were based on specifications given to the analyst from the end-user, so it only seemed logical to ask for clarification from the analyst who was considered the liaison between the end-user and Dev/QA.

After asking a few probing questions, the developer and I quickly learned the end-user was actually asking for “yellow,” which was neither “orange” as he saw it, or “red” as I saw it. The requirements did not lack information or detail, the problem was simply that we had no previous interactions with the analyst regarding the project and it was brand new functionality.

Ultimately, through further discussion with the analyst, we were not only able to get a better understanding of user expectations, but were also able to educate the analyst about limitation within the software that could affect the expected outcomes requested by the users. Through this experience, we implemented a new process in which the analyst would involve development and QA from the beginning of the requirements gathering process. We had continuous communication throughout the requirements gathering process and the analyst was able translate questions and answers from the end users to us and vice versa.

Having the analyst involved with all parties from the start ended up significantly improving the time it took for requirements sign-off because everyone had a shared understanding of the expectations. Additionally, there was a decrease in time spent during development and QA with requirements clarifications, allowing us to deliver the right product faster.

Can an analyst slow down your progress?

While having an analyst on a project can be extremely helpful in communication between an end-user and QA, it can also become a bottleneck within a project that can slow down progress. I typically want answers quickly and prefer to go straight to the source with my questions. This is where an analyst with end-user contact can help.

When you have questions and are dependent on another source to ask your question and relay the information back to you, it’s just one more step in the process that takes time. You must inform the analyst of any questions, they must then relay that information to the end-user who will provide a response, and finally, the analyst provides the answers back to you. However, things may not always go that smoothly. The analyst may be busy with other projects and your project may not be the priority, resulting in a delay in the process which can affect further testing progress. Also, there may be a need for a few back and fourth conversations between you, the analyst, and the end-user and this, too, takes additional time which can result in slower project progress.

What can testers do to make life easier for the analyst?

I think one of the simplest things a tester can do is to define early what it is you will need from the analyst to make testing successful, whether it’s detailed information about text field standards or mocked-up screen shots displaying a visual of the expected UI. Each project will be different and may require different types of information to assure testing is successful. Providing that information to the analyst early can save him or her time on the back-end and provide reassurance that their deliverables will be of value.

I also believe that sharing knowledge related to limitations of the software can be extremely helpful to an analyst. The analyst may be a SME on the project, but he or she may lack the technical background to provide appropriate expectations to an end-user about specific requests. Let’s face it, sometimes a user can ask for the moon without realizing it because they saw it on another software program or simply don’t recognize the time and complexity it may take for implementation. It’s important for an analyst to respond quickly to such requests by explaining that while anything is possible, due to current architecture, available programming tools, or even client-side browser restrictions, that request will add time and complexity to the project. The client may decide with the information provided from the analyst they simply want to proceed without that request or they can brainstorm other solutions that are better suited for the limitations of the software. While I believe information-sharing is vital between all parties collaborating on a project, providing such information to an analyst is especially critical to manage end-user expectations and to ensure we are meeting their needs.

In your opinion, what are some of the best tools analysts and testers can use to communicate as they work together?

When it comes to communication, my personal belief is there is no such thing as over-communication. It is vital too ensure everyone has a shared understanding of what it is we need to deliver and any miscommunications can affect a project greatly from budget to delivery time.

I’ve used many tools that help facilitate communication/collaboration including Campfire, Basecamp, Confluence, SharePoint, VersionOne, Teambox, and Lotus Notes. I feel each tool does a good job of documenting communication and providing a means for collaboration. Everyone will have their own personal preference based on their past experiences with a particular project collaboration tool.

If I had to say what tool I find most valuable throughout a SDLC—hands down—it would be Instant Messenger. As I stated above, I like answers quickly and prefer to go straight to the source. I find IM of great value throughout the work day as I can quickly communicate with an individual in real-time. Should part of our conversation need to be documented for the project, I can save my log files and upload them into any collaboration tool for everyone to review. Additionally, with more and more work being done by remote and offshore teams where face-to-face communication is not an option, IM is my go-to solution. It has yet to let me down, except when the server goes down!

SOUND OFF: What tips do you have on how analysts and software testers can work smarter during the software development life cycle?

–Isaac Newton

Have you ever attended a meeting hosted by a facilitator who was so good their presence faded into the background without anyone realizing it? I’ve always admired talented facilitators who expertly guide the participants in their meetings towards consensus and are all but invisible unless they’re needed to keep the discussion moving forward.

Although irrespective of how effortless some facilitators make it appear, good facilitation is all based on the hard work and careful preparation that occurs before, during, and after a meeting.

In an ideal world, meetings would end with participants all in agreement, but in practice that’s usually not the case. Although the closer we can come to achieving that ideal scenario, the better the result will be for our customers. Why? Because good facilitation promotes enthusiasm which helps to promote consensus, and consensus promotes a feeling of shared purpose and empowerment throughout an organization. But that goal can only be achieved by first bringing people together and empowering them to collaborate so they can reach consensus on a solution that benefits their entire organization.

I’ve studied the techniques of some very skilled facilitators, and this article includes what I regard as the critical elements that go into effective meeting facilitation.

Before the Meeting

As much—if not more —time and effort can go into planning a meeting than actually facilitating the meeting itself. Without adequate preparation, any meeting can quickly dissolve into a chaotic mess. The items below will help to answer the question good facilitators always ask themselves prior to each meeting: “Am I ready?”

• Establish meeting boundaries. Building fences around a meeting is accomplished by creating an agenda that includes the meetings start and stop times, a problem statement, the goal, and any expectations you may have of the participants prior to their arrival at the meeting. It’s important to understand that in order for a meeting to be effective, it must first have a structure. An agenda also gives participants a chance to think about the upcoming discussion so they can effectively organize their thoughts ahead of time.
• Know the participants. Find out who needs to attend the meeting and touch base with any key players to obtain their perspectives on the problem. Be aware of any departmental or interpersonal conflicts, and be prepared to use your negotiation skills to bring those parties into agreement.
• Be able to provide a clear and concise description of the problem. Take the time necessary to fully understand not only the problem, but its overall impact on the customer as well.
• Prepare the meeting space. If the meeting is held in a conference room, ensure enough chairs are available and there are dry erase markers and an eraser for the whiteboard (assuming there is a whiteboard). If using a laptop and overhead projector or flat screen display, test all of the connections prior to the meeting as well as verifying the laptop has access to all of the necessary files needed during the meeting. If some participants are attending via teleconference, then ensure they have the correct dial-in numbers and pass codes.
• Assemble any necessary documents. Make sure any documents that are needed or might be referenced during the meeting are available and ready for use. In my analysis discipline library I keep templates for capturing action items, parking lot items, and meeting minutes. I normally move these templates to a public SharePoint folder (assuming one exists) and rename them so they’re easily accessible by all of the meeting participants.

During the Meeting

Now that it’s begun, there are a number of elements that must be taken into consideration and managed throughout the meeting.

• Assign someone to record the meeting minutes. It’s difficult to be a facilitator and to also record the minutes as well, so ask for a volunteer from among the participants and if no one volunteers, then pick someone.
• Stay neutral and maintain objectivity. Taking sides or injecting yourself into the discussion is never an option.
• Ask more questions than you answer. You’re not there to advance one solution over another or to insert your opinions into the discussion.
• Use active listening. Stay in the moment and listen closely to what the meeting participants are saying and be prepared to offer constructive feedback if, for example, someone has difficulty articulating a concept or idea or if you need to re-state a salient point brought up during the meeting.
• Keep the discussion balanced. There are two discrete types of processes associated with creative and critical thought. They are called divergent (creative) and convergent (critical). If the meeting becomes too divergent, then participants will be overwhelmed by the number of ideas or too many possible solutions. If the meeting becomes too convergent, the exact opposite occurs: ideas are rejected too quickly or not voiced at all, and participants are left with limited choices. In order for a meeting to be truly effective, a balance must be struck between these two processes.
• Ensure that everyone participates in the meeting. It’s important to nurture a safe, positive environment and to encourage collaborative behavior among the participants. So if you see someone who isn’t contributing to the conversation, then find an opportunity to solicit their comments or to ask them a question. Sometimes a simple “What do you think…?” can draw someone out of his or her shell who can make an important contribution to the discussion. Delivering an agenda prior to the meeting also helps introverts with understanding the problem ahead of time so they’re better prepared to join in the discussion and to feel much less awkward if called upon to speak.
• Don’t let anyone hijack the meeting. Some participants may want to use the meeting as a soapbox for something they feel passionate about. So be prepared to enforce the meeting’s boundaries if the conversation starts to head off in a divergent direction. A technique I often use to push back on participants who keep pushing a meeting off-topic is to firmly remind them of its boundaries and to let them know their concerns are being captured as “parking lot” items that will be addressed after the meeting.
• Capture action items. As the meeting progresses, if actionable items pop up that need further work, then record them as action items. Consider using a spreadsheet to enter action items (and parking lot items as well), as that medium provides a common, reusable format that allows filtering by completion status or any other criteria the group may decide to use.
• Keep track of the time. As the meeting nears its end, halt the discussion to test for consensus to determine whether or not another meeting is needed. As a rule, I normally begin this final stage 10 minutes from the stop time because it usually takes 3-5 minutes to close out the discussion. If time permits, provide a brief summation of the meeting and reiterate any action and parking lot items that were captured during the meeting.

After the Meeting

Even though the meeting is over, the facilitator’s work still isn’t done. Executing the items below will ensure the successful completion of the meeting.

• Capture whiteboard content. Use a smart phone to take a photo of the white board so any processes or other information can be captured for future reference.
• Distribute the meeting minutes. Clean up and summarize the meeting minutes and email them—including a list of any action and parking lot items—to each of the participants as well as any other concerned parties.
• Follow up on actionable items.  A realistic timeline should be drawn up for completion of the action and parking lot items captured during the meeting. Be prepared to provide this information as well as each item’s completion status to any interested parties.

Conclusion

As you can see, successful meetings don’t occur by accident. They are conceived through sufficient preparation, effective facilitation, and appropriate follow up. Many people dislike meetings and feel they’re a waste of time due to their prior experience with poor facilitation. Implementing the critical elements of effective facilitation introduces structure and balance into a meeting and creates a collaborative spirit that promotes enthusiasm and encourages critical thinking. People leave well-facilitated meetings energized, thinking to themselves, “Now that wasn’t a waste of time!”

SOUND OFF: What other elements do you introduce before, during, or after your meetings to promote effective facilitation? We’d also like to hear from analysts who are or have been part of Agile projects. How has Agile changed the way your facilitate meetings?

1 – An Organized Requirements Repository is a Good Thing

Developers and testers do not like to read requirements—they’d rather spend their time testing and building the system. If requirement artifacts are difficult to find, your team members are even less likely to reference them. Organize your requirements in a centralized location so that all project team members and stakeholders can easily locate them.

SharePoint is widely used to manage project content, but organizations usually limit users’ access. Make sure all consumers of requirements already have, or can be granted, access to your repository.

2 – Not Reviewing Requirements with Testers Upfront is a Bad Thing

A good requirement does not leave room for interpretation. A good tester will ask questions about unclear requirements, which leads to more analysis work. Ultimately, this work will need to be completed, so you might as well do this upfront while you have business stakeholders’ time secured. Analysts and testers should have continuous, honest communication throughout the project.

3 – Requirements Can and Should be Tailored to the Audience

What good is a requirement if it doesn’t help a downstream customer understand what needs to be built? Often, it makes sense to represent requirements differently in order to effectively communicate them to various audiences. Again, no one enjoys reading requirements documents. Perhaps a flowchart would be more effective? Ask your downstream customers in what form they prefer to see requirements.

In producing different forms of requirements you will sharpen your analysis skills and also challenge your own understanding of what you are building. This will ultimately increase the quality of other requirements deliverables, no matter what form they are in.

4 – Poor Change Management = Poor Tests = Missed Requirements

Change happens—this is inevitable. Projects should always follow a documented, clear change management plan. If an organization has an existing change management plan, follow it. If not, create one. You don’t have to go crazy here, just make sure you get buy-in from all project team members and that everyone understands it. The change management plan should include a step to modify test cases as requirements change. If you do not have to revise test cases during your project, you’re probably not following a change management plan, and you’re going to miss some requirements.

5 – Requirements and Features Should be Prioritized by Stakeholders

Every project has deadlines. You will inevitably find that some tasks will take longer than expected and some things will prove to be more complex than they seemed when time estimates were completed. Ideally, an analyst should get stakeholders to rank features in order of importance. This will enable a seasoned tester to focus on the most important features when time constraints occur.

Also, note how often certain features or workflows are used. This can assist testers and analysts in enhancing a site or application’s usability (for example—reducing the number of clicks it takes the user to perform a high frequency task).

6 – A Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) Adds a Lot of Value

The perfect place to capture rankings and frequency of use is in a requirements traceability matrix, or RTM. If done well, an RTM will make a tester’s job easier. It should categorize requirements, which will naturally translate to logical groups that can be used by the testing team. If there are multiple testers, the categories can be divided up among the testers, allowing each to focus on a specific area of the system or application. These categories will also come in handy when the testing schedule is created. Lastly, an RTM will help the tester ensure that all requirements are covered by their test plan.

SOUND OFF: Have you ever donned two different hats during a project? If so, what did one role teach you about the other?

So why do we have such hard time giving what we do a title? The reality is that we do so many things, it is difficult to pinpoint the one thing we do. My team consists of people who have experience as developers, DBAs, business-side. Some of us have been in professional services forever and others are new to the idea. Some have been corporate ladder climbers, others have owned their own businesses, many lived through Y2K and the dot-com bubble while others have only seen “punch cards” in the museum of computer science from long, long ago.

The common thread that holds us together is that we love digging in, rolling up our sleeves, and figuring it out.  We  relish in introducing ourselves to total strangers over the phone or email (or Instant Messenger or even Twitter!).  We find appreciation for everything we learn, whether that is a critical GxP business process, the topography of a cloud-based PaaS, or simply what happens to the content of safety deposit boxes that go unclaimed.  (It varies by State, according to what the regulations say you can do with it…) We are master negotiators, expert meeting facilitators, and know how to order catering for 5 to 500.  (Make sure to get chocolate for the afternoon!)  We work in tools, without tools, in tools that aren’t really tools. Whiteboards, storyboards, user story backlogs, defect logs, requirements logs—all are part of our landscape.

How do you summarize that in a title?  For now, I am sticking with Analyst.  Of course, this does sounds like something I should dig into, roll-up my sleeves, and figure out.  Anyone else up for the challenge?

Awesome at
Nailing it down
All while
Looking for ways to increase
Your productivity and
Still maintain
True balance

SOUND OFF: How do you define what a BA/SA/BSA does?

What would be the ideal process/tool for a business analyst to communicate his or her design requirements?

Communicating which aspects of the software deliver value is the key responsibility of the business analyst. For different software objectives, different tools work best for keeping that value proposition foremost in the developer’s thoughts.

For example, software that’s valuable because it does critical financial calculations quickly and accurately might be best documented with spreadsheets. Software that’s valuable because it delivers a website with a particular look and feel for a key workflow might be best documented with wireframe tools. Certainly, developers will be better focused on the value that way than if calculations were communicated with screenshots, or page design communicated with spreadsheets.

Has there been a time that the process went really smoothly?  What made the difference?

Well, of COURSE it’s gone smoothly; this is Fusion, after all.

I was in the architect role on a software project that was valuable because it collected information in SharePoint lists, and automated creating and securing those lists according to a complex permissions scheme. The analyst responsible for letting me know what specific information needed to be stored in these lists simply used SharePoint tools to create mockups of the lists in a scratch SharePoint site. The mockups were straightforward to review with the end-users, and produced outputs that were straightforward to incorporate into the overall software.

When the code that created and secured the lists was ready, it sailed smoothly through testing, and made the end users very happy in production. Using the highest-fidelity process available to communicate the list requirements helped assure that no requirements were lost in the implementation intricacies.

What causes the most friction between the two roles? Why?

Keeping a clear, shared picture of where the software’s value lies keeps everyone in the same conversation. Any friction would arise when analysts and developers are trying to focus on different aspects of the software at the same time.

I’ve been in several conversations with analysts where I’m doing the equivalent of insisting that the metaphorical car I’m building can’t work without an automatic transmission, while the analyst is trying to be sure I know that no one will drive that car if it doesn’t have air-conditioning. I try not to do that anymore—I try to start from a common understanding that someone needs to drive that Metaphorical Mobile somewhere, and focus in on details about transmissions and cooling systems from there.

What are two things you think developers wish analysts knew about the developers’ jobs?

First and foremost, and this is for everyone: being perceived as an interruption is deadly to communicating with a developer.  It really does take a while to build the mindset for developing software that’s precise about what it’s doing. That unexpected three-minute phone call, or stop by the desk, really does cost the developer a half-hour or more of rebuilding a software development “flow.”

Specifically for analysts: understand developers get out of bed every morning wanting to plan and construct software.  Hooking into that construction viewpoint helps communication. Asking me how I’d build a car with the best air conditioning engages me more thoroughly than just telling me details of how many degrees per minute the car must cool down. Even if you just came out of a meeting where the exact number of degrees required was debated for an hour and your mind is filled with the importance of getting that particular requirement across, encouraging developers to think about how that detail impacts the software implementation is more effective than presenting why that detail is important to the end users.

In what ways are the roles different and similar?

Both analysts and developers express a vision of something that’s difficult to describe. It’s hard to describe exactly how software is delivering the value it promises when it’s already in front of you—harder still when it doesn’t even exist yet.

Developers, however, are expressing that vision to compilers and other software creation tools, which are notoriously literal and obstinate. Analysts are expressing it to end users and developers, who are notoriously focused away from the overall end-to-end picture. Both are difficult responsibilities—and that makes me glad I work with the best.

SOUND OFF: What do your developers need from business analysts?

I love automating tests and Agile is automated test friendly. This where the “ugh” comes in. One is tempted to replace manual testing with automated testing.

The Dark Side of Relying Solely on Automated Testing

Giving into the temptation of automated-focused testing means that ease of testing gains more than appropriate influence in test planning. This is an invitation for two disasters:

1. Wrong methods are used when testing and more defects escape into production. In other words, quality suffers.
2. Automated testing is seen as the culprit that is reducing quality, and resistance to automated testing is built up.

Both are raunchy things for testers to have to deal with.

Automating Agile Testing is Too Tempting

Automating Agile testing is tempting because development is incremental. It is the incremental nature of Agile that makes it so tempting to automate.

However, from a risk-to-quality perspective, the more the increments come together the greater the need for the kind of one-off and integration tests that cannot be effectively automated.

Agile development is like creating a puzzle in reverse. In the puzzle factory, a picture mounted on a backing is cut into pieces so we can get bleary eyed trying to put the pieces back together correctly. In Agile development, we create the pieces first and then make the pieces fit together.

Testers developing tests with an “automation” mindset are likely to not recognize the key points that must be tested manually to be effective.

Resist the Temptation

Automated tests make sense when testing the pieces, but the real risk to quality is where the pieces fit together. The risk to quality is greatest when separate teams are creating the puzzle pieces.

Stepping back and looking at the whole puzzle will make the need for manual testing apparent. Focus on where the pieces fit together and it will become more apparent.

So resist the temptation. Take the time to look at the whole puzzle and focus on where the pieces fit together on a regular basis.  Better yet, get someone who is in love with manual testing on the team.

Taking these steps just might be the cold water needed to wake you up to the dangers of trying to make automated testing do the job of manual testing.

SOUND OFF: Have you run into problems because of over reliance on automated testing in Agile development? How have you balanced automated and manual testing protocols?

• In the box
• Out of the box
• Under the box

Common wisdom says it is easier to get under the box thinking out of the box than it is to get under the box when thinking in the box.

But I don’t think so. Any useful thinking will get you under the box some of the time. If your thinking has never gotten you under the box, then you have to question if you are thinking usefully at all.

Which is why I say:

“Let it be Excogitation even if it is Erratum”

For those who haven’t looked them up in the dictionary yet, excogitation means a thought and erratum is a think, I mean a thing, that needs to be corrected.

Don’t be afraid to think differently than the others, but always seek out those who can correct your thinking. That way, if you get under the box by thinking in the box or by thinking out of the box, you don’t have to stay under the box.

SOUND OFF: What thinking styles do you employ? Who “corrects your thinking”?

So it’s easy to see that, although it seems like “everybody’s doing it,” there is an overall hesitancy among organizations to jump into the Scrum.

I’ve uncovered a number of attitudes (and actualities) that can make it harder for leaders and their companies to adopt Agile as a corporate paradigm.

It’s Another Shiny Object

Any company that survived the dot-Bomb crisis has continued to be profitable through the myriad economic climate shifts in recent years has had to deal with quite a few “new” production, management, quality improvement, and marketing schemes.  Gaining popularity since its 2001 Manifesto, Agile has been avoided and criticized as just another fad in the business world.

However, as you may remember from our brief history of Agile, the methodology was carefully assembled in small bits over several decades.  Agile is as much a “passing fad” as that new-fangled automobile was in 1908.

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Agile Is for People in Jeans and Sandals

There’s a sense that Agile, with its emphasis on collaborative teams, short-term sprints and unconventional problem-solving techniques, suits a young, irreverent culture devoid of decorum.

The Agile movement has definitely been catalyzed and legitimized by the successes of startups and small companies run by younger professionals (many of whom sport an ultra-casual vibe).  But where Agile addresses today’s cross-functional, ever-changing business needs through the relative autonomy of individuals and teams, it is clear that Agile tools and practices are effective only within its rules, roles and rites, irrespective of attire.

Steve Denning’s article on Forbes.com last year sets the scene:

Company X: The narrow responsibilities and rigid policies, processes, and one-size-fits-all methodologies of our firm don’t fit the free-wheeling ways of Agile. Agile isn’t going to work here.

Denning: Precisely. What’s wrong here is the corporate culture, not Agile. Surviving in today’s marketplace requires individual and team freedom.”

Who’s In Charge Here?

Agile’s primary framework is the team.  So at a distance, it looks like it has no reporting structure or way to assess the performance of individuals.
In Agile, the team is corporately responsible for successful development and delivery.  It is difficult, but the performance-based structure of individual rewards would have to change.  Leaders have to decide if the potential improvement is worth the efforts needed to adjust to Agile.  But there’s good news.

Denning explains in another article, that “in the [Agile] model, power shifts from the notion of ‘being in charge’ to the notion of ‘being connected.’  This means that you don’t have to be in charge to exercise power. What’s interesting about the new organizations [Amazon, Google, Starbucks, Wikipedia] is that they tend to be more powerful than the old organizations.”

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Agile Revolution

Leaders of organizations in 2013 struggle to discern legitimate processes like Agile from the glare of the latest fads.  And it’s scary to imagine 20-somethings with piercings and tattoos overtaking your corporate culture and getting their fingers into your code.  What is most daunting, though, is the thought of giving up a traditional, linear power structure.

But a close look at the Agile phenomenon allows leaders to realize the value in the methodology.  To adopt Agile will require taking a few risks, meeting some interesting people, and learning a new language.

But in my book, that’s not just surviving.  That sounds like living.

SOUND OFF: What do YOU think?  Do you know of other reasons companies are reticent to adopt Agile as their very own? 

The Scrum is the key management framework of Agile that is meant to prevent those issues.

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Definition of Scrum

The first definition of Scrum comes from the late ’80s.  The idea was opposed to the conventional sequential method of developing software: “Scrum was first defined as ‘a flexible, holistic…strategy where a development team works as a unit to reach a common goal’” (Wikipedia, Scrum development).  Scrum is a term that comes from the game of rugby (apparently, the development approach first took the name rugby), and refers to the visceral, circular restart after a minor foul has occurred.

The key concept, as you may have noticed, is the TEAM.  The Agile Scrum was designed to be as full on a team effort as any UK rugby match—except without the bloodshed and concussions.

There’s No “I” in SCRUM

The Scrum is not just the team; rather, it refers to the team members in addition to its tactics, plays, cooperation, and goals.  The Agile Scrum team is made up of three primary, and two ancillary roles:

1) The Product Owner: this person has assumed responsibility for the delivery of value to the customer.  Potentially taking other roles as well, the Product Owner provides guidance and resources to the rest of the team as he or she represents the needs of the Stakeholder(s).

2) Development Team members: usually between 3 and 10 in number, these roles design, develop, analyze, and deliver work product at the conclusion of each sprint.

3) Scrum Master: the coolest-sounding role by far, this individual is not the primary motivator or leader.  Their primary function is to eliminate obstacles from the successful delivery process, by following the rules of Scrum, and helping the team to remain focused throughout each sprint.

a) Stakeholders: these are the clients, customers, or vendors for whom value is being created by the other roles.  Unlike those in conventional, waterfall-type development, Scrum stakeholders are able to speak into regular sprint reviews.

b) Managers: These folks help keep the Scrum work environment under control.

Your Daily Scrum

There are a number of important checkpoints and artifacts for the team, including the daily scrum or daily standup, backlog checks, sprint planning meetings, and burndowns.  I defined some of these a few weeks ago.  These are all necessary to Scrum, but the daily standup is what makes the greatest contribution to the integrity of the Agile Scrum.  It is a short meeting with strict boundaries, where each team member is required to answer three questions:

1) What have you done since yesterday?

2) What are you planning to do today?

3) What is blocking your progress?

Although there is more to the Agile Scrum than can be noted here, the framework is essential for success within the Agile methodology.  An Agile team, like a rugby or any sports team, is more than just the players.  To be successful, it needs roles, rules, and reviews.  These are what Scrum brings to the process.

SOUND OFF: How is your business using Agile practices?  Are you faithful to the Scrum framework?

I recently had the opportunity to become acquainted with the Scott W. Ambler and Mark Lines book, “Disciplined Agile Delivery, A Practitioners Guide to Agile Software Delivery in the Enterprise,” which defines a robust process framework that extends the software construction life cycle to support enterprise solution delivery.

According to Ambler and Lines, some Agile practitioners feel that due to its focus on construction-oriented activities, the core Agile process framework isn’t mature enough to provide features crucial to the enterprise such as governance, architectural planning, modeling, auditing and regulatory compliance, and the support for larger, geographically distributed teams. In their introduction to Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD), the authors describe how less mature Agile teams often lack the necessary discipline and process rigor needed to deliver for the enterprise because many times they dismiss those features as unnecessary. But as the title of this post indicates, DAD extends core Agile by incorporating it into a new, robust Agile process framework.

This post provides a simplified, high-level description of how the core Agile process framework has been extended to meet the challenge of delivering solutions for the enterprise. I would encourage anyone who wishes to learn more or who has already wrestled with tailoring core Agile methods to meet the demands of enterprise-level solution delivery to pick up a copy of this excellent book.

The Core Agile Process Framework

Agile software development (ASD) is a process that Wikipedia defines as, “…a group of software development methods based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development and delivery, a time-boxed iterative approach, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change. It is a conceptual framework that promotes foreseen interactions throughout the development cycle.”

To illustrate this definition, the diagram below provides a high-level overview of the Scrum process. It demonstrates how mainstream core Agile performs construction activities that are often described as value-driven life cycles where small, self-organizing teams produce customer-approved, straightforward code that’s frequently tested and delivered at the conclusion of each sprint (or iteration).

Extending Core Agile

As you can see, Scrum is not the only component that’s needed for the delivery of complex solutions and without significant customization; it doesn’t scale much beyond the software construction life cycle  So to overcome this obstacle and achieve the scalability and other features needed at the enterprise, Ambler and Lines extended Scrum by incorporating it into the DAD process framework.

Figure 2 below describes how some of the characteristics of core Agile were extended into the DAD process framework.

The Disciplined Agile Delivery Process Framework

Ambler and Lines define the DAD process framework as a “hybrid” that “…extends the Scrum construction life cycle to address the full delivery life cycle while adopting strategies from several Agile and lean methods.” They go on to describe a common pattern they’ve seen repeated in many organizations where Scrum or another Agile method is adopted and then it must be heavily tailored using strategies from a variety of different methods (i.e., Extreme Programming, Agile Modeling, and Unified Process). Their intent is the creation of a robust process framework that defines common tailoring strategies already being used at most organizations which have implemented Scrum or other Agile processes.

For those organizations that are using Agile processes, there are many benefits that come along with adopting the DAD process framework. These include teams being “enterprise aware,” meaning they function within the organization’s enterprise ecosystem so effective and appropriate governance can be performed. The framework offers a “risk and value-driven” characteristic where risks such as stakeholder consensus and architectural planning are addressed early in the life cycle  It is also scalable based on factors such as team size and geographical distribution, technical complexity, and regulatory compliance.

As demonstrated in the DAD process life cycle diagram below, we can see that Scrum has been extended to three phases: Planning, Construction, and Release. Each phase has three stages: Coordinate, Collaborate, and Conclude. Ambler and Lines call these three phase stages the “3C rhythm” and they map directly to the concepts of inception, construction, and transition, respectively.

Conclusion

Conventional Agile approaches such as Scrum or Extreme Programming only deliver part of what’s needed for complete IT solutions, while DAD provides a robust process framework that assembles common Agile methodologies and strategies and focuses them on a full delivery life cycle.

If you would like to learn more about the DAD process framework beyond the book referenced at the beginning of this article, there are a number of sources on the Internet including the Disciplined Agile Delivery website that is moderated by Mark Lines and Scott Ambler.

SOUND OFF: Have you ever had to tailor an Agile Scrum process to extend it beyond the software construction life cycle? What challenges did you face?

In a more conventional, waterfall-style development process, all of the requirements are specified early on, and the end goal is a working product far down the line.  In the middle phases, where the development effort is full on, the work can be very slow or proceed at a frenzied pace.  It can be two or three long phases before the problems surface.

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Agile Sprints: More Than Iterations

The Agile methodology divides the entire effort into smaller efforts, called “sprints.”  And the word sprint implies fast action.  In all the energy and excitement of a sprint, stakeholders and developers alike can lose sight of those ever important stand-up meetings and other checks and balances along the way.  People can get caught up in a mindset that says, “At the end of the sprint, just throw it at the wall, and see what sticks.”

Agile is made up of sprints that are defined by fast action, but not careless action.  The iterative nature of the methodology is meant to make sure each part of the process benefits from quality checks, new knowledge, as well as emerging requirements and innovations.  If tasks aren’t grounded firmly, checked regularly, and focused on the most current, updated information, then yes, the team will probably produce shoddy work.  But that’s not Agile iterative development.

Agile: A New Mindset

Agile requires a new way of doing day-to-day business.  It’s hard for some people to adjust to a paradigm of constant change, even quite late in the process.  Also, changes in the scope of an Agile effort appear like certain doom to many in an organization, as Agile demands working software and high quality at the end of each sprint.

Those who think that Agile and its iterative sprints are an excuse for poor work product along the way are victims of some kind of iterative process.  But it’s sure not Agile.  Agile sprints are hard for an organization to adjust to, and are fast and furious and productive.  But they are worthwhile when understood thoroughly and meticulously monitored throughout the process.

SOUND OFF: What’s your experience?  Have you been there when Agile has become the excuse instead of the method?

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When Spencer Johnson wrote “Who Moved My Cheese” in the late 90s, a simple book aimed at encouraging corporate denizens to move with the times with agility instead of hanging onto vestiges of control against an uncertain future, he didn’t have the Agile software development methodology in mind; That would come a few years later in the new millennium, as pointed out in this prior post on the history of Agile.

However, what Johnson did have in mind was a call-to-arms to counter the paralysis that was gripping corporate America at the time with the looming issue of Y2K and its potential impact on business computer systems.

Until the late 90s, if you are to believe Johnson’s premise, professionals were embracing “change” as anathema, a pox on the way things have always been done.

Institutional progress in adaptability has been made in the intervening years; I’ve lived it, sometimes more comfortably than at other times. But professionals of all stripes, software development or not, still mostly do things by process, planning, and quarterly (or longer) execution increments.  Agile, as a fast, adaptable methodology, hastened by the light speed of the Internet, attempts to undo that linear stodginess and takes the parabolic thematic elements of Johnson’s tome into practical terms—embracing and welcoming constant iteration.  In fact, in an Agile mode, the end isn’t the end at all; it’s the beginning of what’s next.

The Agile Methodology Migrates to Marketers

Marketers, not a group to miss an opportunity to jump on a buzzword to make it their own, have co-opted the concept of Agile, even creating their own manifesto that models the Agile software development’s manifesto.

However, there is a fundamental difference in between what Agile means in the realm of software development versus that of marketing.  Where Agile as a software methodology strives to deliver working, valuable software quickly, Agile marketing embraces flexible, customer-centric, adaptive efforts.

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The differences, then, between Agile software and Agile marketing are that a software deliverable presumably works.  Agile marketing, well, may not always work.

For marketers, an Agile call-to-arms isn’t just to embrace the principals of living fast and flexibly, but also to embrace failure.

We’re all up for failure, right?  If we are, then we should at least endeavor to fail fast and fail forward.

The Entrepreneur’s Secret to Staying Nimble in the Face of Struggle

“Failing forward” is a key principal of entrepreneurship, and start-ups, no strangers to agility, often do a little trick that keeps things moving along, both for really smart people who are working in the proverbial weeds all the time failing, but also to help keep their eye on the prize.  And this is a trick that I would encourage any marketer who needs to work Agile to do, as well:  fastidiously track the big picture and the future.

Let’s put this in practical terms.  You’re a digital marketer and you’ve been asked to plan and execute social marketing campaigns on an iterative basis.  Your quarterly marketing tactics are now a series of tactics that happen on a daily/weekly/monthly basis with no real end in sight—you adjust, you adapt, and you keep going, chasing interminable goals.  This can get exhausting (and frustrating).  However, it only becomes exhausting because we allow ourselves to be pulled down by the inertia of the grind, losing sight of the big picture.

Therefore, the secret that start-ups follow, to offset the weariness that sets in by failing forward constantly, is to track an anticipated future state:

• Here is where we are
• This is what’s next
• This is where we want to be

Often times in a more staid corporate culture, the “big picture” and the future is more difficult to parse and can be abstract. But tracking forces around your subject matter expertise, where your work is consistently engaged, can be a great place to start absent a sense for larger company missions for the future.

Here’s My Recommendation 

In order to stay Agile yet track the big picture, set up three buckets in your organizational tool of choice.  I happen to use Instapaper, a browser plug-in, to track news articles.  Evernote, OneNote, or even a spreadsheet will work equally well.  Now, within your tool of choice, set up three folders and called them “Now,” “Next” and “Nebulous.”

The “Now” folder is related to news items that are relevant to the work that you’re currently doing.  The “Next” folder is related to the things that you want to do, or you think you’ll have to do through the process of progress gained via Agile iteration. And the “Nebulous” folder is for all of the news items that don’t make any relevant sense but cross your radar with curiosity.

Any bit of job-related news articles that you read (that’s also worth saving) then falls into either the Now, Next, or Nebulous category.

Periodically, review each of these buckets.  The “Now” folder is going to bolster your confidence that you’re on top of your game.  The “Next” category is going to empower your work ahead of the Agile curve. And the “Nebulous” category, perhaps the most important category, is going to put wind in your sails that your nimble awareness will well position you and your efforts for the future.

Here are a few examples of the “Nebulous” folder news items that I’m tracking now:

• Google handwriting recognition for search 
• Hand motion control
• Apple iWatch
• Google Glasses 
• ICANN New Top-Level Domains
• 12 Futurist Certainties

Now, is tracking the future to bolster our sense of self in the short term a panacea for the discomfort we sometimes feel with the constancy of Agile change?  No.  However, it is at least a waypoint in the constant evolvement of the work that is our professional lives, and a continuing step forward to protect the sanctity of our current work while hedging for the future. As Daniel Burrus, the author of the “12 Futures Certainties” article linked above,  ironically notes,  “Agile” is no longer enough.

SOUND OFF:  With agility an imperative in everyday work life, what do you do to steady yourself, but ensure you’re continuing to push your knowledge and skills forward?

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I love cars—anything with wheels that makes “vroom-vroom” sounds.  But as a kid, I was amazed to find out that there wasn’t an old guy somewhere who had hit his head on the sink one morning, only to come to and draw up blueprints for the first internal combustion engine.

Agile wasn’t built in a day, either.  It wasn’t even built in a decade.  In my previous post about the history of Agile, it’s clear that it took a long time, many smart thinkers, and a lot of parts to come up with the Agile Manifesto of 2001.  And since then, it has been subject to even more revisions, tangents, adaptations.

Agile or Conventional?  Gas or Electric?

So, to compare Agile to traditional methods of developing software is like comparing a fossil-fuel-powered car to an electric.  Because there are so many permutations of each, it works better to reduce the two camps to their essential elements, and speak in more general terms.

In general:

Agile teams are diverse, and iterations (or sprints) contain initial requirements, development, testing and release all in the span of a few weeks. Stakeholders speak into the process at regular intervals, and there is continuous evaluation.  With conventional methods, all requirements are established early, and testing is done at the end, not requiring much business interaction in the middle.  The Project Manager is usually an IT professional, seeing the project stage through to completion.

Is Agile the Best Methodology?  

I saw an interview recently with Ewan McGregor, the actor.  He’s a real gear-head, so I was shocked to hear that he drives a hybrid-electric car when he’s in London.  But he said it’s because the city is so congested.  He spends a lot of time in traffic, and doesn’t want the environment to suffer when his car is standing still.  In the countryside, he uses conventional gas-powered cars and motorcycles.

So as to whether Agile is the best, the answer is: what do you need to do?  Every business solution is as unique as its problem AND as unique as the people trying to solve it.  Conventional methods are fine when there is very little need for business input, but Agile shines when time-to-market is the #1 priority.  Conventional process works well to deliver quality when time is less of an issue, whereas Agile puts functionality in users’ hands more quickly and frequently.

Additionally, where conventional waterfall-type methods have been the norm, it is important to consider the fact that potential Agile team members need training and a level of comfort with the process to make it work well.

Before you decide to jump into Agile, take stock of your people and the needs of the project.  Then realize that you don’t have to go completely electric; you could benefit from a hybrid.

SOUND OFF:  What do you think about Agile?  Where has it worked for you, and where has it flopped?

But interestingly, I think the true test of success today is not necessarily in the strict adherence to verified processes. Rather, it’s in the ability to adjust, rearrange, and maneuver to address client requests which push, challenge or even change the processes.

So what does that look like? Here are some examples…based on actual assignments:

• “Redesign my website to build my brand, but stay within the technical parameters of my current IT framework, make it mobile responsive. And BTW, we haven’t yet established our digital brand style guide. Just use our print guidelines and interpret for the web.”
• “Re-architect my website and reorganize and rewrite the content to address this major shift in our business focus; use this platform because we already have it, and make it work like a content management system. And do it in four weeks.”
• “Create two email templates that incorporate our new branding, that are completely flexible in terms of where we can place content, that accommodate the length differences in all languages to meet the needs of our global users, and that work in all browsers and email clients.”

Challenging – yes; but doable if you just apply some of the principles of Agile:

• Have a plan, but count on changing it.
• You won’t get it right the first time; so you iterate.
• Changing requirements on a fixed time frame.
• Testing, testing, testing.
• People over processes.
• Frequent reviews not formal presentations.
• Don’t demand perfection just  keep moving in the right direction.
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.

So don’t be afraid to take those prized processes and continuously reshape them to fit a new set of criteria. That could mean shortening, lengthening, skipping steps, even skipping whole phases. We prioritize. We phase. We make it work. This is how we create custom business solutions that are more efficient, leverage client resources, and fill in where they have gaps.

Processes are great. Even Agile software development has a process. But being Agile, as a team, in the way we think and act, interact and react, is the new normal.

SOUND OFF: Have you worked on a project where you had to “bend” the processes a little? How did you make it work?

When I came on board, the project was in flight, over budget, and close to not being delivered on time. The customer was plagued by problems that seemed to come out of nowhere and as soon as one problem was shot down, another one would fly in to take its place. And being over budget, they were feeling the financial pinch, but this project was a critical component in their planned future growth so failure was not an option.

Strapping on my jet pack, I picked up my paint gun and flew to work!

Applying the Base Coat

Experience taught me that I had to quickly come to grips with the project’s current state. So once my approach received a green light from the Project Manager, the first order of business was to meet with each of the Business Analysts to gain their perspectives on what worked and what didn’t. I also needed to capture the current Requirements Management processes as well as evaluate BA work habits so I could deal with any experience or skill set issues.

Since the project was in flight, I shadowed the BAs for a day or so as they went about their assigned tasks in order to gauge how well information was being communicated by the BAs—the voice of the business—to other teams on the project.

Within the same time frame, I met with the Development and QA Leads as well as each of the Business SMEs involved in the project. I gathered their input on BA performance and deliverables, how business deliverables were approved and handed off, and their ideas on what improvements could be made.

In less than a week a picture emerged of an immature application-delivery infrastructure and a customer who had taken on a large, extremely complex project that required a level of sophistication they were ill-prepared for given the state of their requirements management processes as well as their overall delivery pipeline.

Listing the issues I’d uncovered, I identified and prioritized the issues we needed to correct ASAP if the project was going to have any chance of pulling out of its tailspin. Items at the top of my list included:

• Project Management had little or no visibility to “blockers” who were preventing the completion of assigned tasks. BAs would simply sit on a task until, for example, a needed resource became available.
• Reporting risks was hit and miss at best, so when risks turned into issues the project team was blindsided and problems would seem to appear out of nowhere.
• Meetings were poorly facilitated, sometimes chaotic, and many times the wrong audience was involved.
• BA deliverables always included low-level design and development information mixed in with business content. There wasn’t a clear understanding of where the BA work (i.e., the “what”) ended and Development work (i.e., the “how”) began. This confused and frustrated the Business SMEs because they didn’t know which kinds of content they were actually approving.
• No formal Change Management process existed, which contributed to serious scope creep. This helped to push the project over budget because work wasn’t being delivered on time.
• No formal Requirements Management Plan existed, but instead an in-house tribal process had evolved for pushing work through what often times was a very leaky pipe.

Applying the Top Coat

In order to realign the project’s requirements management practices to get them back in line with at least a minimum of industry standard practice, I saw three areas that needed immediate improvement:

• BA Communications
• BA Deliverable Content
• Requirements Management Practices

I had to carefully weigh the overall impact of inserting new process into an already dangerously overburdened project, especially in an environment that was highly resistant to change.

Too much change and the project would grind to a complete halt. Too little change and the project would continue to sputter and stall out.

Since I couldn’t undo the poor planning decisions that led to the situation the customer now found themselves in, as demonstrated by the table below, I opted for quick wins that would speed up the pipeline without seriously over-pressurizing it.

Conclusion

As you can see, the improvements described above aided in smoothing out the delivery of work, but they were just what their name implies: quick wins. There was still a lot of work left to do to correct critical issues throughout the entire application delivery infrastructure so future projects wouldn’t repeat the costly mistakes of their predecessor.

Change is always difficult. And while some organizations adapt to it without too much contention, others are more resistant to altering the way things have always been done. On this particular project, I received push-back from some team members who thought the changes were either too much process or a complete waste of time. But from many team members—particularly the embattled Business SMEs—there was a new perception that some order had been restored and the project had been pulled out of its tailspin.

And that’s how you paint a commercial jet at 30,000 feet.

SOUND OFF: Have you ever had to adjust the requirements management process for in in-flight project? What challenges did you encounter?

The 12 principles of Agile as they are described in the Agile Manifesto can be traced pretty far back into the 20th century – to the 1940s in fact, when the idea of Kanban (which, you may remember, refers to the visual representation of a process) was introduced as part of TPS/Lean Engineering.

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Agile: The Sum of Many Parts

Let’s fast-forward to 1992, when Alistair Cockburn created the Crystal Clear methodology. Crystal was focused on small, highly-communicative teams quickly and reflectively developing usable code.

1993 and ’94 brought to the development world Refactoring, a disciplined way of restructuring code, as well as DSDM, or dynamic systems development method. DSDM laid a lot of groundwork for Agile by emphasizing business needs, timely delivery, collaboration, quality, incremental and iterative development, continuous communication and control.

Scrum (with its sprint-iterations, roles, ceremonies and artifacts – still a large part of today’s execution of Agile) was created by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. Pair Programming, incidentally, which is not integral to Agile but is used by many Agile developers, was brought into the light the same year.

In 1999, some big steps toward the advent of Agile were made by some major thinkers.  Kent Beck collaborated with Ward Cunningham and Ron Jeffries on the Extreme Programming concept (XP), and published a book which points to best practices in planning, managing, coding and testing.

Uncle Bob Calls for Agile Mind-meld

With all these though leaders, speakers, programmers and authors creating such a stir in the (global) software development community, Uncle Bob called for a meeting.

Seriously. In 2000, “Uncle Bob” Martin (as he is known to his friends the software community), a long-time software consultant in the U. S. and proponent of the clean coding movement, called together a group of professionals for a meeting of the minds. The meeting took place in 2001 and marks the creation of the Agile movement.

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Seventeen men, including all of those mentioned above, met together and came up with a document called “The Manifesto for Agile Software Development.”  The document is a statement of the 4 values and 12 principles on which the Agile methodology rests.

Since the meeting in February of 2001, more ideas and concepts have been developed, including Test-Driven Development by Kent Beck, as well as Lean Software Development and Kanban applied to Software Development.

It remains to be seen whether new ideas that emerge are extensions or tangents of Agile. What’s clear from a short (though woefully incomplete) history of the movement, however, is that the Agile development methodology, although it may seem shiny and new to some of us, is the product of many years and many minds.

*Thanks to Speaker/Author Udayan Banerjee for his excellent synopsis of Agile history.

SOUND OFF: Have anything to add to the time-line?  What are your thoughts about the future of Agile and new concepts?

The backstory is that I am a member of a local music society, and because I have no real musical insights to share with my fellow members, I contribute by running our website and handling our social media presence. I do this in my spare time, which has been quite limited lately. So I left WordPress security training on the back burner while I focused on site updates. I, of all people, should have known better.

Training Versus Performance Support

This whole ordeal got me thinking about the difference between training and performance support. In Bob Mosher’s and Dr. Conrad Gottfredson’s 2010 book, Innovative Performance Support: Strategies and Practices for Learning in the Workflow, they outline their Five Moments of Need model that articulates the difference between formal training and performance support:

1. When Learning for the First Time
2. When Wanting to Learn More
3. When Trying to Remember and/or Apply
4. When Things Change
5. When Something Goes Wrong

The first two moments of need deal with acquiring knowledge and are generally the domain of formal training. The third, fourth, and fifth moments of need center on applying knowledge on the job and are the domain of performance support. “Performance Support is providing intuitive, tailored aid to a person at his or her moment of need to ensure the most effective performance” (Mosher and Gottfredson).

I was clearly at need number five. I (quickly) needed step-by-step instructions for finding my site’s hidden .htaccess file, Unix commands for quickly removing infected folders and sub-folders, and a review on installing a fresh copy of WordPress and linking to my database.

This is where performance support comes in. Even if I had invested in training prior to this calamity, it’s doubtful that I would have remembered every step I needed to take to restore my site. Of course, you could argue that I might not have needed such instructions in the first place had I invested in training and learned how to systematically appraise my site for security risks and had taken preventative steps. Mea culpa. But in this world of googling for answers and navigating by GPS—both performance support tools—a lot of us learn at the moment of need.

I’ve spent a good deal of my professional life leading formal training classes and developing formal e-learning training programs, and I am truly an advocate for organizational training. But I’ve noticed that clients are requesting more performance support learning tools: job aids, FAQs, live and recorded webinars, short videos, and other reference materials. Like I needed just-in-time, step-by-step instructions for restoring my hacked website, our clients have needed similar performance support when applying new knowledge, dealing with changing policies or processes, or troubleshooting.

I fixed my website thanks to step-by-step instructions found via Google and links from the excellent StopBadware.org website. I saved the instructions to Evernote so that they’re readily available in case of another security breach. But I’ve also invested in some WordPress security training so that I’m now able to throw a few roadblocks in the way of the hackers. And hopefully I’ll avoid future emails telling me that our site is full of malware.

SOUND OFF: Does your organization rely on formal training? Do you incorporate performance support tools to assist users at their moment of need?

CC Attribution Some rights reserved by vancouverfilmschool

Agile practices as described in the 2001 Manifesto for Agile Software Development have made their way into different industries, so although the words may be familiar, the Agile terms below have unique definitions.

Agile Software Development (and Project Management):
An iterative method of development that emphasizes collaboration, responsiveness to change, and the reduction of waste throughout the development cycle.  Agile Project Management simply refers to the style of project management used to support Agile software development.

Team:
A cross-functional group of people committed to working together to deliver a work product and improve their performance over time.

Scrum:
The most widely recognized Agile framework for the iterative development of complex products, comprised of a series of short iterations called sprints.  Scrum includes three roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Team Member), four ceremonies (daily standup meeting, sprint planning meeting, sprint review, and retrospective), and three artifacts (burndown charts, product backlog, and sprint backlog).

Sprint:
The Scrum term for each iteration.  It is punctuated by the ceremonies listed in the above definition of Scrum.

Story:
A unit of business value that can be estimated and tested.  Stories chiefly describe a group of tasks that must be done to create and deliver a feature for a product.

Task:
A manageable, doable, and trackable unit of work. Typically, there are several tasks per story. Tasks must be verified as completed, and must include a description of the work to be performed, an estimate of the time needed, an “owner,” a test or verification method, and a person responsible for that verification.

Standup:
A daily status update meeting for team members.

A Scrum in rugby. Now that’s a team!
CC Attribution Some rights reserved by pipelinedesign

Backlog:
Non- or low-priority stories and tasks that a sprint team will work on in the future.

Burndown Chart:
A publicly displayed chart of the total task hours remaining per day that shows where the team stands regarding the backlog and sprint goals.

Fail-fast:
A system designed to immediately report a failure or condition that is likely to lead to failure, and to stop operation rather than continue a possibly flawed process.

Iteration:
A method that develops a system through repeated cycles (iterations) in small portions at a time (increments).  It allows team members to leverage what was learned during earlier development points.

Kanban:
A Japanese word meaning “billboard,” Kanban visually represents the state of work in process.  It is meant to reduce bottlenecking by constraining the amount of work that happens at the same time.

Product:
Denotes the software that is the subject of the iteration or release. As such, “product” is generally used interchangeably with other names for software release including “software release,” “system,” or “business application.”

Timebox:
A fixed time period to achieve some objective, often used to avoid over-investing in certain tasks.  Iterations and sprints are examples.

Many thanks to SolutionsIQ  for the basis of this glossary.  Visit their site for an exhaustive list of Agile terms as well as other resources.

SOUND OFF: Have any thoughts about Agile?  Love it?  Hate it?  Do you have any clarifications for this list?  We’d like to hear your thoughts!

Math Makes Art – CC Attribution Some rights reserved by JonDissed

Think about your favorite movie, preferably one you went to see at a theater. Now think about the story and the characters, and how many times you’ve seen it.  Remember the intensity of your emotions during the film, and how long it took to “come back to reality”?

Wouldn’t it be cool if the things we make at Fusion impacted people such that they couldn’t help sharing the experience with everyone they knew, and needed a come-back-to-earth recovery period?

Content and the Math of Art
I know we don’t make feature films at Fusion Alliance, but I think we can look at these massive productions for a few practical tips.  I call it the math of art.  It goes like this:

When adding creative content elements,
1=10, 1+1=1,000, 1+1+1=10,000 and 1+1+1+1=1,000,000.

(1=10)
One well-told story equals 10 on the content-impact scale.  It can engage and inform and move people to action.  Read The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway.  Or, stand in front of Monet’s River painting at the IMA for ten minutes and see what happens.

(1+1=1,000)
What if you add music to a story?  It becomes…Well, have you heard of the Grammys?
Or, show your kids pictures of their late Grandma as you tell them about her garden and her pet ducks.  There will be…emotions.

(1+1+1=10,000)
Get your friends in a room and crank up your playlist and a slideshow from last year’s camping trip.

(1+1+1+1=1,000,000)
Here it is: Toy Story 2, where Jessie sings over her memories of being donated to charity.

I think you get the point.  I’m not saying that your client needs a rendition of The William Tell Overture to accompany their on-line reference guide.  But some relevant and thoughtful images might serve to make the information more memorable.

I Don’t Make Movies
Not every solution needs every kind of content.  In fact, some solutions require very little.  But it’s a good idea to consider all of the options as well as all of the combinations of content.  The reason our favorite movies impact us so deeply is that the content was thoughtfully combined for maximum effect.  The best movies are perfect case studies of User Centered (Content) Design.

Tools and platforms are so advanced and specialized, it is easy to become myopic in content design.  As you do what you do best, step back from time to time and think about what it might mean to do the “math of art,” and add the elements.

You might discover an epic combination.

SOUND OFF: What are your thoughts on multimedia solutions and additive content?  We’d love to hear from you.

The problem is, although both of you will grow up and stop fighting with each other, your little brother will become obsessed with words by the time he is 20.  He will learn and use all of the right words, just the right words, even really BIG ones that no one else knows, and he will use all of them properly.

And if he is me, he might begin to write blogs.

CC photo by sylvar, some rights reserved

The Code – Content Corollary

Here at Fusion, our teams get pretty obsessed with creating the highest-quality solutions for our clients.  Lately, as I have been writing about design and development processes, it has dawned on me that good quality copy is every bit as important as good quality code.

And I think there is a really important correlation between the two: customer service.  If a developer writes crappy code, the software will either work poorly or not at all.  Similarly, if a content writer writes crappy copy, the lines of communication are either crossed or cut completely.  There are few clients who would put up with that for long.  Broken communication, like poor performance, equals bad customer service.

But imagine that the developer’s code is elegant and the software works perfectly.  If the content around the solution (from the documentation to the UI to the website that promotes it) is poorly written, the assumption is that the software is poorly written, too.  That’s true of any industry.  A huge part of the Dyson vacuum company’s success is due to James Dyson’s perfect diction in their ads.  The English accent doesn’t hurt, either.

Good Content Isn’t a Formality

I recognize the loss of formality in language that permeates the Internet and powerful social media.  In fact, I appreciate that in the last 20 years, our culture has ushered out some of the more needless social norms.   And I’m not quite as OCD as Kyle Wiens of iFixit.com fame; I am friends with (and would certainly hire) several people who are brilliant thinkers and doers, just not brilliant grammarians.

However, if I put considerable effort and capital into creating excellent products and services, it behooves me to be equally diligent in the way I speak and write about them.  If I can’t do it myself, I might have to hire someone who specializes in words.  Maybe even someone who’s obsessed with them.

SOUND OFF:  How important is careful content writing to your company?  Let us know what you think!

CC photo courtesy of Serge Kij, some rights reserved

A few weeks ago, we heard from Ben Rondot on whether Responsive Design would be the next big thing in 2013.  He concluded, as others have, that Responsive Design is indeed a big deal, but that dedicated application development will continue to hold a strong position in solutions design.

As a follow-up to Ben’s perspective, Travis Moser, User Experience developer on our Digital team, was kind enough to give us some specifics on the pros and cons of Responsive.

JF: Travis, why has Responsive Design been such a popular topic lately?

TM: The first part of the answer, I think, is that all of the devices that are considered “mobile,” from smartphones to tablets, are continuing to grow in popularity.  In addition to that, advances in the tech around these devices means that all of those platforms can handle the technique natively, especially as IE 7 and 8 decrease in usage.  So, the public has a broad variety of choices, and Responsive Design is a viable solution for addressing all of the platforms.

JF: What are the positives about Responsive Design?

TM: First of all, Responsive Design makes no assumptions about devices.  You can design and build, one time, anywhere from 320 to 1280 pixels wide.  It’s nice to not have 4 or 5 separate design sets.  As a result of that, you only have one set of content to manage, because the way content responds to each device is already in the code.  Also, as consultants, it is more convenient to only commission a single design.  Website design with Responsive maintains a single URL, and when updates are necessary, a single update will be applied to all platforms.

JF: What have you found to be drawbacks to using Responsive Design?

CC photo courtesy of Serge Kij, some rights reserved

TM: On downloads, all of the code comes to every device (for example, every mobile phone gets mobile code and desktop code), so if a dedicated app is built efficiently, it will almost always work faster than the corresponding RD code.  Also, you’re making the assumption that users on every platform have similar goals, and in my experience, they just don’t.  A good example is a restaurant website: the mobile user might just want a quick version of the menu and a phone number, whereas a desktop user might expect nice images of the dining rooms.  Speaking of images, every device gets those in RD as well, which can result in slower load-times.  Responsive Design requires a lot more testing effort, because of the number of different devices that receive the same code.  It used to be, “Build twice, test 3 or 4 times.”  But with Responsive Design, it’s “Build once, test everywhere.”

Travis went on to say that as the industry adopts Responsive Design, pitching designs to clients should become quicker as they accept comps that don’t immediately represent the mobile experience.  Thanks to Travis for his time and input!

SOUND OFF: Have any experience with Responsive Design?  What do YOU think?  We’d love to know…

CC photo courtesy of Nickel Plate on Flickr. All rights reserved.

So how does a conservative, under-the-radar, Midwestern city earn a high-tech reputation like this? Through multiple start-up accelerators, among which is an organization called Cintrifuse, which provides office space to entrepreneurs and connects them with potential investors both local and nationwide.

Because Cincinnati is home to many big advertising/branding firms and large organizations, it’s filled with the kind of creative, business, and strategic marketing talent it takes to support a start-up community. Organizations such as Procter & Gamble, Kroger, and University of Cincinnati, along with many others, are investing in Cintrifuse’s fund of funds, which was created to build venture capital to finance regional start-ups. In addition to opening up their wallets, they have also committed to engaging in the entrepreneurial community. This means high-potential start-ups will not only have the financial support to really “give it a go,” they’ll also have access to resources and people who can help mentor and guide them to success.

In concert with Cintrifuse, there are many other organizations that are playing a role in helping attract, build, and retain entrepreneurial start-ups with the potential to transform the region into a major high tech hub. Here are a few:

bioLOGIC is a life sciences consulting company that also develops and manages life science ventures.

The Brandery is  a seed-stage start-up accelerator that selects eight to twelve startups to participate in a four-month program, which includes a $20K seed investment, along with mentoring and  design, operations, and development assistance during the program. It concludes with a “Demo Day” where each startup pitches to an audience of VCs and investors from all over the country.

UpTech is  a non-profit corporation affiliated with Northern Kentucky University and several economic development agencies in the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky area. Its goal is to attract entrepreneurs from all over the U.S. and the world who have a “big idea,” nurture and help grow it, and have those companies and entrepreneurs put roots down in our community.

INKUbator is part of the NKU business school, and its mission is to increase the competitive advantage for NKU students by providing them with education, mentoring, financing, facilities, and other related resources to enable a successful entrepreneurial start-up process. It will serve  as a “feeder system” to other area accelerators and technology parks like the eZone, Brandery, HCBC, CincyTech, bioLOGIC, Vora Technology Park, etc.

CincyTech is a public-private seed stage investor whose mission is to strengthen the regional economy by driving talent and capital into scalable technology companies in Southwest Ohio.

SOUND OFF: How does your city rate when it comes to supporting startup ventures?

What is exploratory testing?
Exploratory testing is defined as “a style of software testing that emphasizes the personal freedom and responsibility of the individual tester to continually optimize the quality of his/her work by treating test-related learning, test design, test execution, and test result interpretation as mutually supportive activities that run in parallel throughout the project.” Did you get all of that? Let’s put it in much simpler terms. Exploratory testing is simultaneous learning, test designing, and test execution.

Is exploratory testing important?
Everyone has his or her own opinion on this particular subject, but I personally find exploratory testing of great importance on each project I work on. Exploratory testing can help a tester overcome the limitations found with scripted testing. If you are committed to quality, then I would highly recommend setting aside time to think through the software product and explore.

How is Exploratory Testing different from Scripted Testing?

Are there challenges?

• Replication of a defect can be difficult to reproduce
• Documenting all events that occur during test execution can be difficult
• Learning the application can be challenging
• Reporting results can be difficult without requirements to compare expected with actual results

What are the benefits?

• When requirements are not available and testing needs to be done, this approach can be very useful
• Investigating the product typically leads to more defects found than scripted testing
• Expands the knowledge base of testers through the execution of more test cases
• Encourages creativity and learning

Summary:
Exploratory testing can be a useful tool to have in your tool belt when testing, especially when used in combination with normal testing techniques. This approach can only enhance testing results and allows a tester the freedom to learn and grow within the product, leading to discovery through exploration.

SOUND OFF: What are your thoughts on Exploratory Testing? Let us know what you’re thinking!

Back in November, I posted a blog on setup options for mobile usability testing. One of them was a readymade mount called Mr. Tappy, created by a UX researcher, who built the prototype of his invention by taking a piece of plastic and bending it over a household toaster.

On a recent engagement, we had the opportunity to try out Mr. Tappy in a usability test that involved the iPad. Fusion Experience Architect, Travis Moser, developed the testing scenarios, built the mobile prototype and facilitated the testing with eight subjects. In addition, Travis was responsible for devising the setup with the new device and cameras, and integrating it with our Morae software.

My assessment as an observer of the testing was that it was a relatively easy setup with seamless integration with our Morae user testing software. We attached the Mr. Tappy arm with the webcam to our computer monitor to capture the iPad screen with all the subjects’ gestures from above, as they navigated the site.  With the exception of the occasional reflection of an overhead ceiling light in the iPad screen, the screen and gestures were captured clearly for later observation and analysis. A camera on our monitor captured the user’s facial expressions and responses, and appeared as an inset on the observer’s screen. (The observer’s screen showed the tablet screen, plus the inset of the user’s face.) The only limitation in the subject’s use of the iPad was that it had to be kept within about an 8” x 10” area on the table to stay completely within the Mr. Tappy-cam view. While this may seem a bit awkward for the user, it did not pose any issues for our test subjects.

I had a chance to catch up with Travis to get his observations about the experience, as the facilitator and User Experience lead on the project.

Me: Please share your experience with Mr. Tappy. How did you end up with the configuration you used?

Travis: Mr. Tappy was initially meant to be used by attaching the arm to the back of the tablet or mobile phone that the tester is holding. However, I felt that this configuration wouldn’t work with our test because the Mr. Tappy arm felt relatively heavy, and especially so when the webcam was attached.

I originally ordered the iCube webcam to attach to it, which was very light, but I found the quality of video to be too low to capture useful data. So then I tried a Microsoft LifeCam Studio 1080p HD Webcam. It records higher quality video but was significantly heavier. This resulted in a rather unwieldy experience—holding a tablet with a long arm with a heavy camera made it a really off-balance and awkward experience, particularly when trying to switch orientations. However, I decided capturing data was more important than having the camera attached to the iPad.

In the end, I decided to attach the Mr. Tappy arm to the back of the monitor and instruct the tester to hold the tablet however they were comfortable, as long as they kept the tablet within the marked area on the table.

Me: Would you use it again?

Travis: Yes. This configuration worked very well. The Mr. Tappy arm felt sturdy—the joints tightened securely, it stuck to the Velcro tape on the back of the monitor well, and the tripod mount held the camera securely. The arm was long enough to keep the camera out of the tester’s way, and it had enough joints to enable me to angle it in such a way to capture the tester’s interactions with the iPad.

Me: Would you  do anything differently?

Travis: No. I was happy with the way it worked.

Me: Any suggestions to those who might be considering mobile testing options?

Travis: Definitely try out your configuration beforehand to make sure that it is comfortable.

Me: Would you recommend Mr. Tappy for mobile user testing?

Travis: Yes—in the configuration I described.

Me: Do you have any constructive feedback for Nick Bowmast, the inventor of Mr. Tappy?

Travis: Maybe come up with a new version that uses lighter materials. The metal used feels very heavy. When it’s attached to the mobile device, it throws off the balance of holding the tablet.

Thanks to Travis for sharing his insights. We look forward to our next mobile user testing engagement!

SOUND OFF: Have you done any mobile usability testing? How did you do it? Was it successful? Why or why not?

Believe it or not, a similar thing can happen with heuristics when developing software.

Heuristic assessment of computer software and hardware was formalized as an approach by  Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich, who co-authored Heuristic Evaluation of User Interfaces in 1990. The book introduced a relatively small number of principles to judge the usability of a particular interface. Among those principles are system feedback, understandable language, escape routes, consistency and conventions, careful anti-error design, flexibility, simplicity, and even essential documentation.

These basic concepts might seem like “no-brainers” to the seasoned developer, but today’s complex computing culture brings looming release dates, ultra-specific requirements, and a cloud of subjective feedback. Intuitive, heuristic checks can easily get overlooked—eliminated by assumption. The heuristic approach includes a few basic ideas that can help in any stage of evaluation, from design to testing, and make sure that “all the kids are in the car.”

1) Be the expert (also include other brilliant people in the evaluation). In our data-driven industry, acknowledge and act on your experience and expertise.

2) Focus on key features. Keep the essentials in mind during evaluation, and make sure that ancillary functionality serves those goals.

3) Do your homework. Each evaluator should understand the product and its purpose thoroughly prior to the assessments.

4) Involve multiple evaluators (See #1). Heuristics is an intuitive approach; scrutiny from several angles is needed to capture the majority of usability issues.

5) Minimize bias. In heuristic evaluation, there’s no feedback from actual users. So evaluators, like jurors, should not talk with each other about the case during the evaluation.

6) Use users. Heuristic evaluation is an essential but broad filter that helps keep a project on track. Only focused user-testing procedures can provide the feedback and data needed to give customers a better experience.

The heuristic approach, by definition, is an inexact science, while user-testing provides valuable data from actual users.  But keep in mind that neither is fool-proof. The intuitive principles from Nielsen and Tolich are logical, easy and inexpensive to deploy, but not enough to complete the job  User-testing is focused, but can introduce tester bias, complexity, environmental, and other factors that skew results.

If both user testing and heuristic assessment techniques are accounted for in the development process, users will benefit from the experience. And no one gets left behind.

SOUND OFF:  What do you think about heuristic evaluation?  Is it just another word for best practices?  Let us know what you think!

Too often, clients do not see the value in properly undertaking a planning process to define goals and anticipated outcomes for a web project.  Instead, projects are undertaken based on conceptual precepts that may or may not be true.  And forget about actual user testing.  How often does that happen?

With digital activities now having gone through multiple generations and reaching a maturity stage, I equate this lack of planning to the same loosening of parental structure that the youngest child experiences in multi-sibling families.  Increasing parental experience translates to a more hands-off approach for the kids, understanding that they will still turn out okay.

As the youngest child in my family, I can unequivocally say that I appreciated not having to experience the parenting rigor that my eldest sister received.  However, this laissez-faire thinking, in the realm of web development, is flawed—here’s why: Your kids will love you regardless of how much you’re invested in the process.  Your customers and prospects will not.

In fact, the pace at which your customers’ expectations of you are maturing doesn’t have a baseline, let alone a parenting analogy.

When considered in the realm of user-centered design, the process through which planning is undertaken to understand the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of a web site (including testing with actual users), it’s easy to see why there are real winners and losers in any given competitive web niche.  If every professional who was responsible for a web project understood what the due diligence in planning and user-centered design would mean to success, we’d all become insufferable helicopter parents.

I don’t expect every client web project manager to turn into Ben Franklin overnight, espousing “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail,” but some general order to thinking can definitely set a project up for success.  I tend to like frameworks because they can bring order to the unwieldy.  Here then are five recommendations for doing structured, light-bodied planning.

1.  Determine “What is Your Why?”

This TED talk video defines a small, light concept for getting to the heart of the matter.

2.  Determine Who Cares About Your “Why”

Persona development is a discipline unto itself.  I like using Claritas Prizm to map to demographic segments.

3.  Do Your Strategic Planning

This graphic from Angie Schotmuller, Chief Conversion Officer at inbound marketing company Unbounce, while presented for Social Media, is an equally good tool for web sites, sleek in its simplicity and coherence.  As a bonus, double-check your work to ensure your planning is S.M.A.R.T.

4.  Define the Ongoing Content Inputs to Support Your Site

I’m particularly fond of a model called “Web Presence Optimization.”  An explanatory white paper can be found here.

5.  Define Your Measurement Model

There is some overlap from analytics guru Avinash Kaushik’s measurement model with steps 3 and 4 above, but reinforcement brings clarity.

This five-step process to DIY web project parenting planning, punctuated by normal interruptions and breaks to bring order to thought, should take no longer than a good business day, perhaps a bit longer if put into a document.

If your planning is then turned over to your web partner prior to the project for more holistic support in execution that includes proper technical discovery, a creative brief, a project kick-off, development, user testing, and measurement tracking, I can guarantee you that not only will your web partner hug you with joy because of your preparedness, but you will also feel and receive the accolades of a parenting job well done after the site has launched.

SOUND OFF: What planning process goes into your web projects?

CC image courtesy of Jeremy Keith on Flickr

Cashmore concluded that Responsive Design was necessary, and would likely make a big impact on 2013’s development scene, but that consumers, clients and customers will continue to need proprietary apps, too.  Here at Fusion, we wanted to get the opinion of one of our resident front-end developers, Senior Consultant and Art Director, Ben Rondot.

JF: Do you think Responsive Design is the “Next Big Thing” in 2013?

BR: The short answer?  Most likely.  Mobile in general has become such a big deal, of course, but the term means a lot of things.  Nowadays when you talk about “mobile,” you’re talking about iPhones and Androids, two sizes of iPad and all of the other tablets, not to mention the other types of smartphones.

So, you can see that there are a lot of variations and sizes, and the market for developing apps and tools and services needs new ways to deal effectively with the vast differences among the devices available.

JF: What is it that makes Responsive Design a necessary option for developers?

BR: The options for the developer are: use Responsive Design or build a specific app.  Some clients want to offer function-heavy tools or more technical services, such as online banking and investment management.  Apps will continue to be needed for environments like these that are more tailored to the individual.

But I think Responsive Design really shines in cases where the same content needs to get to a lot of different people on all of their different devices.

JF: What are some of the best reasons to use Responsive Design?

There are quite a few, but a good example would be IndyStar.com or another news service.  The information they produce is meant for the masses, and doesn’t necessarily require specialized or individualized functions.

Also, from an SEO perspective, targeted and relevant content is being increasingly recognized as a driving force in our economy.  To sell their products and grow, businesses need their messaging to be available on any platform, at any time.  Responsive Design code detects the display, whether it’s a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone and serves up content in the appropriate format.

Many thanks to Ben for his insights!

SOUND OFF: What are your thoughts regarding Responsive Design?  Drawbacks?  Pros?  Cons?  Ideas?  As always, we’d love to get your input.

Written in collaboration with Jimmy FauntLeRoy, Fusion Alliance Content Strategist   

Pre-Season Ideation: Earlier in the football season, our team had come up with a few new ideas to advertise Fusion at Lucas Oil Stadium during the Colts season. But for guests at the Colts suite, we wanted something novel—something that would get people’s attention.

A few days later, some of us were talking about Arduino boards, which are palm-sized, eight-bit microprocessors from Italy. Nerdy stuff, I know, but they were first made for interactive design students. A Google search for more info on Arduino boards turned up something odd, something called a Twicker.

A Twicker (assuming you don’t have one on your desk already) is a plain, black, plastic, five-inch cube with an “@” symbol on the front.  But if you look closely, it has on its top a light and a slot. Apparently, someone thought it would be cool to hook an Arduino processor to a thermal receipt printer to spit their Twitter feed out onto a roll of white cashier tape.

How Cool is That? Wouldn’t it be cool to put three in the Fusion Colts suite?  So as always, I pitched a rather odd idea to the Fusion marketing team.  And, to my surprise, this one stuck! Boom—approved!  Why this device and not another? As an art director in the middle of a local technology giant, I am always attracted to the weird and the bizarre to cut through banal noise in our market. The Twicker would do the trick; it balances the new (Twitter) with the old (ticker-tape machine). Twicker also embodies our people at Fusion pretty well—creative, on-trend, peppered with just enough nerdiness.

The Plan: If all works to plan, it would be the right kind of conversations in the suite during Colts games—conversations about creative tech ideas and hands-on service you can’t get anywhere else.

At every Colts home game, the Twicker was set-up up on a table just inside the door of the suite. Every time a tweet hit our particular hashtag (#optionpass), it would move through the little black box’s ethernet cable and pop out to thermal tape with the tweet on it.  At the end of each game, there would be a nice, conspicuous pile of tweets on the table.

It was a nice marketing idea, but was it effective?
Here’s what business development folks have to say:

“The Twicker got one of my customer’s attention, and I was able to start a conversation about Fusion’s capabilities in the social space.”

“The Twicker machine in the Colts suite turned into a lunch-and-learn with the entire marketing team for the education division for one of my customers, including the Director.  Now we are putting together some options for how we could engage to help them.”

“The Director of Creative Services at a local financial services organization, thought the Twicker was really cool and wanted to know how it fit into the overall campaign.  From that discussion and the tweet-chats, she led the charge to get Fusion on their project.”

This little Twitter Black Box seems to have started making a stir. If you can’t live without a Twicker box of your own, and you have 133 bucks burning a hole in your pocket (and you’re handy with a soldering iron), you can buy one online from a company called Adafruit.

SOUND OFF: Have any thoughts or questions about the Twicker, digital technology, or the future of steam-punk retro-future? Let me know! The idea we discuss just might be better than this blog.

JF: What is “Mobile First” design, and how is it different from conventional methods?

DS: Simply put, the conventional web design process starts with the desktop and attempts to “pare down” the user experience to fit it onto mobile devices. Mobile First web design is exactly what it says it is: digital design starts from a mobile profile and adds elements as needed for tablet, laptop, desktop and larger formats.

More and more mobile devices are taking over the marketplace, and trying to squeeze a large-screen desktop brochure, where every department in your company gets a page of content, onto a smartphone doesn’t work.  People don’t have time to sift through all of that to find what they need.  Here’s an infamous example:

That is unfortunately the mistake a lot of businesses make when they assume they know what their customers want.   Companies need to shift their thinking. When the mobile customer receives their first wave of effort, the most important and relevant data come to the surface.  Great things happen when business goals meet users’ goals.

JF: What are the major advantages of Mobile First design?

DS: Mobile First gives users a better experience overall. Clarity and simplification in any mobile environment, whether a website, an application or another tool, gets users what they need more quickly, and it’s beneficial to the larger formats as well. There is just way too much information on most web pages, so a tight design with concise copy would be a differentiator for any business.

People tend to think that simplification might lead to simplistic, less sophisticated user experiences, but the opposite is actually the case. Constraints promote creativity, and can be a catalyst for a more intuitive and relevant design.

JF: Why do you think some developers might resist the Mobile First mentality?

DS: It’s totally normal for people to want to keep doing things the way they’ve always done them. It’s a temptation for all of us. But sometimes, as a consultant, there’s additional pressure if the paying client is also resistant to trying something new. Sometimes they’re open, but not always.

Also, Mobile First, as with any design effort, must take into account user data. Data is the key to answering the important questions about what users want and need, and how they will be using the solution.

Many thanks to Doug for his input! 

SOUND OFF: What are your thoughts on Mobile First web design? Let us know what you’re thinking!

6 User-Centered Design Terms to Know:

1. Usability – According to Usability.gov, “usability refers to how well users can learn and use a product to achieve their goals and how satisfied they are with that process.” User-centered design is a key methodology for carrying out usability.
2. User Personas – A user persona is a portrait of the user who is behind an organization’s current set of User Stories, or who inspired an Epic. According to Summer Fabian, this persona “can be as simple as a sketch, name, occupation, and primary motivation, or as complex as a two-page biographical breakdown with full color glossies and cultural implications. The most important thing for your developers is that they have a clear guide to [the user] WHO they are developing for.”
3. Paper Prototyping – As Carolyn Snyder’s “Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces” explains, “paper prototyping is a variation of usability testing where representative users perform realistic tasks by interacting with a paper version of the interface that is manipulated by a person ‘playing computer,’ who doesn’t explain how the interface is intended to work.” Paper prototyping is one strategy that can be used as part of user-centered design.
4. Heuristics – Heuristics are recognized usability principles. A heuristic evaluation is a usability inspection method that involves examining the interface and judging its compliance with these principles as a way of identifying usability problems in the user interface (UI) design.
5. Contextual Inquiry – Usabilitynet.org defines contextual inquiry as “a specific type of interview for gathering field data from users.” The aim of contextual inquiry is to gather as much data as possible from each interviewee for later analysis.
6. Responsive Web Design – This design approach is based on the idea that the website’s design and development should respond to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform, and orientation.

SOUND OFF: Has your organization utilized user-centered design? What terms would you add to this list?

This post was prompted by a recent article from Nancy Nee on the Modern Analyst website “10 Key Business Analysis Trends For 2013,” where she predicts that in the year ahead, “modeling skills will take precedence in business analysis training.”

Nee goes on to say that, “Many organizations that have embraced Agile and business architecture are beginning to understand the importance of modeling skills and the value they bring in delivering quick, efficient solutions. Agile projects and effective business architecture both require a strong skill set in process and use case modeling. Modeling techniques will be a key focus area for BAs in 2013 as these tools will become critical in depicting the impact of solutions on the business. As such, the written word will continue to slowly lose its appeal and significance when describing solutions and impact to customers.”

I’ve since discovered that many of the activities I perform as a BA are also needed to develop Business Process Models as well. So in this post, I’ll first explain what Business Process Modeling is and why it’s important. Then I’ll describe how BPM ties into the core soft-skills that all BAs are familiar with.

What is BPM and why is it important?

A Business Process Model represents one or more structured processes performed by a business that directly or indirectly produces a product or service. The process model captures each activity and decision-point as a product or service travels along the path towards its completion and consumption by a human or non-human consumer. Process models place a strong emphasis on “how” work is done within the business rather than focusing on the “what” of an end-product the business produces.

Process models are normally diagrammatic (usually UML) and produced by sophisticated modeling applications such as Sparx Enterprise Architect. But they can just as easily be Visio diagrams or even post-it notes connected by marker on a whiteboard. And while theoretically, an entire business can be described by a single model, for process models to remain meaningful to people, larger and more complex processes are usually broken down into smaller, sub-process models that work together to describe the business as a whole.

The importance of BPM lies in its ROI to businesses. Process models provide the necessary current-state documentation that describes how all of a business’s processes work as well as the activities and actors which are involved with them from start to finish. Once complete, a “current state” model can be analyzed to realize efficiencies that eliminate redundant processes or needless complexity. This makes businesses more responsive to their customers as well as lowers their operating costs. For example, process models allow businesses to identify and automate repetitive manual processes, providing faster execution at less cost.

The Correlation of Core BA Skills to BPM

Like any professional discipline, BPM has its own well-documented standards and practices that govern how modeling is performed. But if we take a step back from the rigor of BPM as a discipline we can see, as illustrated by the image below, the connection between the methodology described for developing process models and the soft-skills used by BAs during requirements elaboration.

Image 1: BPM & Requirements Management

To demonstrate this point in more detail, the table below provides high-level correlations between BPM activities in the left column and Requirements Management activities in the right. As you will see, the same soft-skills you already possess can be leveraged to develop process models!

For businesses overloaded by needless bureaucratic exchanges, redundant or repetitive processes, or simply too much administrative expense, BPM is an extremely valuable planning asset. It allows businesses to streamline their processes thereby cutting costs while at the same time putting them on a firmer, better-understood path to their future growth.

As Business Analysts, we already have the necessary soft-skills for working with our customers to develop process models. Learning the hard-skills needed to produce process models in a modeling application is simply a matter of obtaining the appropriate training.

Now go forth and model!

I finished up my presentation on Millennials to a small group of leaders, and headed to the social presentation in another room.  As I was prepping, one of the individuals I served with  on the Board of the Intercollegiate YMCA, pulled me aside. She said the group was restless, had been sitting a while and needed some “waking up.”

I immediately changed my entire presentation plan.

Dressed in suit and tie, I called everyone down to the floor and asked them to face the windows. Without missing a beat, no pun intended, I blared the Cha Cha Slide over the speakers and immediately fell into my “Radio Disney” days and lead them through the dance. It not only caught the group by surprise and made them laugh, but it set the pace and tone for the entire presentation. I was able to build on that energy and had the group engaged, laughing and participating for the entirety of the session.

So, sometimes, based on your audience and the situation, you have to call an audible, whether it’s in a sales pitch, a marketing campaign or within your business. You look at your target market, look at your plan, and in a moment of spontaneity, take it in a completely different direction. It’s moving to the beat of a different drum.

SOUND OFF: When have you needed to call an audible? What did you do and how did the audience respond?

Image Source: Wired.com

Who can forget what some call the “most dangerous flaw” of Apple’s iPhone 5: Apple Maps? In April 2012, Apple introduced the iPhone 5, iOS 6 and the entirely new mapping app, which replaced the Google App available on earlier iPhones. Although Apple senior VP, Scott Forstall described the app as “beautiful,” the general public’s reviews of Apple Maps weren’t so favorable.

So what can we learn from Apple Map’s glitches and negative feedback? The following are three lessons to take away from Apple’s Apple Map fail:

1. Verify Your Data
   When first released, Apple Maps erased or provided incorrect addresses for well-known landmarks and even failed to provide location data for entire countries. In many cases, this bad data—purchased from TomTom, Yelp, Waze, and other sources—made the app useless, however it does reinforce a lesson about the importance of good data.
2. Take Advantage of Usability Testing
   In his review of Apple Maps, New York Times writer, David Pogue says the app “may be the most embarrassing, least usable piece of software Apple has ever unleashed.” Mobile usability testing is still an emerging area of user experience testing, but can help prevent flaws that would make the app less beneficial for the end user.
3. Capitalize on Collaboration
   Reports suggest that Apple decided to create Apple Maps from the ground-up after a dispute with Google over voice-guided directions. However, Apple didn’t have to go it alone after choosing not to work with Google, they could have partnered with Yahoo!, Microsoft, or another existing mobile map vendor. Apple Maps had lots of problems, but sometimes all it takes to see the solution is a different view. Apple’s choice to build it’s own app from scratch cost them opportunities for successful collaboration with multiple perspectives.

SOUND OFF: What lessons have you learned from failed first attempts with a mobile app? When it comes to Apple Maps, what do you think was Apple’s biggest mistake? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

My interpretation of this principle is that empowering a team allows them to create beyond your expectations. One oft-overlooked empowerment tool is the User Persona. Here is an example developed by our User Experience team:

I’ve heard of this User Persona…

A user persona is simply a portrait of the user who is behind the current set of User Stories, or who inspired an Epic. It can be as simple as a sketch, name, occupation, and primary motivation, or as complex as a two-page biographical breakdown with full color glossies and cultural implications. The most important thing for your developers is that they have a clear guide to WHO they are developing for.

Why is a User Persona important?

Developers are smart and user savvy. By understanding the source of the need and the destination of their code, they will write a better application. They may anticipate more needs than the product owner or stakeholders could interpret for them through a User Story. More perspectives on the same need usually produce better results. Also, developers appreciate the freedom and insight that comes with direct access to the primary source material, the user. It’s simply empowering.

How do I develop a User Persona?

There are a few ways to develop a persona. The simplest way is to ask those who have gathered requirements or are working on the user interface, or, if they’ve already developed them, marketing product managers. The user persona is a foundation-builder for those disciplines. You must match those personas to the current work stream and keep them relevant.

The next best way is to gather stakeholders, content strategists, UX developers and product owners together in a room with a stack of magazines and a whiteboard.  Then, agree on some simple personas for the current release or the next leg of the roadmap.  Each should include, at minimum:

• A face: from magazines, image searches, or drawn by hand – a clear, understandable face that represents the user
• A name: for easier reference and to develop affinity
• An occupation
• What they would use the tool for
• How they would use it
• Where they would use it

How do I get the team to pay attention to the User Persona?

All information radiators should be clearly visible from almost anywhere in the development room. Whether you use whiteboards, digital screens or post-it notes on drywall, the user persona should be easy to read from 4 feet away. Also, make the personas easy to replace. It’s important to stay relevant to the current backlog.

At Fusion, we spend a great deal of time thinking about the user. From requirements to design and ultimately to testing, we focus on the user. With clearly posted, relevant user personas, your developers will be empowered to create beyond your expectations.

SOUND OFF: Are you using user personas already? Do you think they are working?  Have other questions? As always, please let us know what you think!

So what did the events of the last year teach us about IT security? Here are five of the most memorable cyber attacks of 2012:

1. Hit: LinkedIn Users
   In June, an attack on social network, LinkedIn affected 6.5 million users. Within the same 24 hours, as many as 1.5 million eHarmony passwords were leaked online, prompting information security experts to encourage users to change passwords and implement unique passwords for each social media network.
2. Hit: Top Universities
   On October 1, a group of hackers calling themselves Team GhostShell published thousands of personal records from 53 universities including Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, and the University of Zurich. Records included email address, names, usernames, passwords, address and phone numbers. In some cases, records included other sensitive information such as students’ dates of birth and university employee payroll information. In order to breach servers, hackers used a technique known as “SQL” injection, which exploits a software vulnerability.
3. Hit: Major U.S. Banks
   During September, six major banks—including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, and PNC—suffered denial of service attacks. Although the attacks alarmed customers, DoS attacks are not technically sophisticated enough to impact a company’s computer network, and customers’ funds and bank accounts were not affected.
4. Hit: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Employees
   This data security breach compromised the social security number and banking information of 8,000 employees and other individuals associated with the EPA.
5. Hit: Zappos
   An attack on a Zappos’ company server in Kentucky, allowed hackers to steal 24 million customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, and billing addresses. The cyber attack also compromised customers’ credit card numbers, allowing hackers to obtain the last four digits of customer credit cards.

SOUND OFF: What do you think will be the biggest kinds of IT security threats in 2013? Is your organization prepared to deal with these cyber threats?

But as project budgets and timeframes continue to shrink, analysts must also look for ways to shave time off their requirements gathering and elicitation activities because spending valuable time chasing down unnecessary information erodes an analyst’s ability to deliver their work on time and under budget.

One way analysts can utilize their time more effectively is to know when to put on the brakes and stop gathering requirements.

So When Does Done Really Mean “Done”?

A question that I’m frequently asked by customers and colleagues alike is, “How do we know when we’re done gathering requirements?”

To answer that question, there is a two-step process that we can use to first put on the brakes to stop the gathering process and then to evaluate our requirements against a set of completion criteria.

Putting on the Brakes

As you elicit requirements, remain cognizant of the number of new requirements or the amount of significant changes to existing requirements that you’re receiving from your SMEs and other knowledge resources. As the volume of both of these kinds of information decreases, start looking for any repetition (i.e. the same requirement being repeated differently) or information that doesn’t conform to business goals or that’s out of the project’s scope. When you begin seeing this type of “noise” during your elaboration, then it’s probably time to put on the brakes and stop gathering requirements.

Think of it this way: When you start gathering requirements, you’re drinking from the fully opened valve of a fire hose. But as your work progresses the valve is tightened down until finally all you’re left with is an unhelpful trickle.

But once you’ve stopped gathering requirements, how do you know if you’re really “done”?

Well, you won’t know that until the gathered requirements are given a reality check!

Validating Gathered Requirements

The following list of questions is a litmus test you can use to evaluate each requirement to ensure its accuracy and efficacy.

For every requirement, ask the question “Is it…”

• Complete – Does the requirement have missing information?
• Consistent – Is the requirement consistent with other sources of information (internal or external)?
• Correct – Does the requirement meet the business goal as well as fall within the given project scope?
• Necessary – Is the requirement needed or is it extraneous information (i.e. “noise”)?
• Traceable – Has the requirement been uniquely identified so it can be traced?
• Unambiguous – Does the requirement apply to only a single interpretation?
• Verifiable – Does the requirement meet with the approval of both business and downstream consumers?

Once all of the requirements have successfully passed the completion criteria above, then done really does mean “done.”

SOUND OFF: What’s the most important thing you do to ensure you deliver high quality requirements?

As we discussed last week, the website “2012 Year on Twitter” takes a look at the some of the tweets that reflect the last calendar year, including the “Golden Tweets” that generated the most retweets during 2012. Although we can learn a lot from these popular tweets, you might still be wondering, “What was my golden tweet from 2012?” Lucky for you, there’s an easy way to find fun and interesting stats about your tweets from last year.

Finding Your Most Retweeted Tweet of 2012

As part of their “2012 Year on Twitter” website, Twitter partnered with Vizify to allow anyone to see their Twitter account’s “Golden Tweet.” Ours came in October and had to do with job offerings here at Fusion Alliance.

Want to find out which of your organization’s tweet’s generated the most retweets? Visit 2012.Twitter.com and follow the steps for “Your Year on Twitter” or simply visit Vizify.com/Year-On-Twitter and select “GET YOURS NOW!”

In addition, Vizify determines your “Golden Follower,” the person who mentioned your account most during 2012. Vizify also provides interesting information about what terms and hashtags you tweeted, when you tweeted them, and even the specific tweets that included those terms and hashtags.

SOUND OFF: What was your most popular tweet of 2012? Does knowing this information help provide guidance for 2013 social media planning?

Image Source: 2012.Twitter.com

Creative Commons Infographic: Licenses Explained

Lisa Ruff pointed out this dynamic infographic about Creative Commons licensing.  We’re seeing more of this work in the marketplace. The article discusses appropriate use of CC licensed materials and some tips for attributing material you may use in your own blogs and websites.

Coca-Cola’s Content 2020 Overview

Jeff Lefevere sent the team this backstory interview with Jonathan Mildenhall, Coke’s Vice President of Global Advertising Strategy and Creative Excellence and the two You Tube videos (click the image) on Coca-Cola’s 2020 content project.

Why he thinks it’s cool: Coke has led consumer marketing for nearly a century. When they (or another consumer packaged goods (CPG) giant like Procter & Gamble identify a direction like this, it’s good for marketers to heed notice.

HFI on ROI of UX

Amy Baker thought this animation talk on User Experience was a notable presentation.

10 James Bond Gadgets That Actually Exist—and One That Needs To

Jodi Adair obviously has a secret thing for James Bond….or gadgets… one of those two. In either case she found this article on exciting new gadgets good reading.  Each gadget is mapped directly to a Bond movie where it appeared as a technological advance available to only the most important of intelligence officers.

• Gyroplane – You Only Live Twice
• Polarizing Sunglasses – A View to Kill
• Homing Beacon – Goldfinger

Part guide, part workbook — and crammed with inspiring, surprising, often humorous stories gleaned from dozens of interviews from other carefully-selected entrepreneurs in a wide variety of types of business — The $100 Startup stops just short of launching the business for his readers. Guillebeau’s driving message to his reader: You can do what you love and make money doing it. So get started. Now.

But what does this have to do with “big” business? What can be gleaned from Guillebeau’s book for those of us who have day jobs we want to keep? Entrepreneurs have much to teach all of us, if we just pay a little attention.

The critical intersection: passion + MARKET = profit

In one of my favorite South Park episodes (guilty pleasure), one of the characters is plagued by gnomes who sneak into his bedroom at night and steal his underwear. When Stan, Cartman, and gang follow the thieving gnomes to their underground lair and confront them about their pilfering, the gnomes explain their actions by sharing a simple profit plan:

Step 1: Steal underpants.

Step 2: ?

Step 3: Profit

This is how some business books — especially those touting the entrepreneurial life — feel to me. A clear desire and a clear goal, but what’s that magic that happens in the middle? Guillebeau’s answer is simple: You have to have a market for what you want to do. This holds true, even for companies such as Fusion Alliance.

Guillebeau is encouraging, insistent, and inspiring, but he’s not selling magic lamp oil.  He takes a very pragmatic view of the adage, “Do what you love and the money will follow.” Not every dream is a money-maker, and finding the right combination of what you’re passionate about and what others care about is the key to business success. Along with this caveat, Guillebeau serves up numerous stories of how everyday folk found this exact combination and launched businesses that either supplemented or supplanted their day jobs. Their perspectives on both their successes and their mistakes form the basis for a balanced, practical road map to career freedom. Or, for those of us in the corporate world, a way to feed our souls while we fill our kitchen cupboards.

Running a discipline requires discipline

Where other writers simply share success stories and hint at mystical secrets and divine interventions — largely drawn from their own very subjective experiences — Guillebeau analyzes his own and others’ stories for commonalities and offers his readers reproducible approaches and practical tools. He provides checklists for launching and growing a business, strategies for promoting it, as well as ideas for finding funding (of more than $100) and support for it. In other words, Guillebeau lays bare the secrets of his own success, as well as those of other successful entrepreneurs.

On a micro-biz level, the tools he offers represent essentials for connecting the dots between dream and business reality. On the level of creating or maintaining a discipline or practice within a company, those same tools and approaches could improve the health and efficiency of the group. Adaptation is only an insight away.

Who should read this book?

Across a variety of sites, reviews, and social media apps, I see Chris Guillebeau’s work described as “inspirational.” But I wonder: How often does inspiration become action? I also see numerous naysayers, those who believe that Guillebeau is “unrealistic” or somehow “lucky.” And that might be my perspective, too, had he based his book on his experience alone. But The $100 Startup tells the stories of people who lost their jobs and were forced to think differently about making a living; people who found a gap in an existing product or service that needed to be filled; people who stumbled upon a business idea while messing around with something entirely unrelated. Some of his entrepreneurs were intentional, as he was. Some were accidental. Some were immediately successful. Some needed to try and try again.

But the thing they all have in common? They pushed fear aside and did something.

So who is the book for? Guillebeau’s dedication sums it up nicely:

“This book is for: those who take action and those who provide the inspiration“

(Related: See Chris Guillebeau’s $100 Startup site.)

SOUND OFF: Have you read Guillebeau’s books? What insights were you able to apply to your business — or your life — to make it richer?

1. Social Media Mistake: Using Hurricane Sandy to Sell Clothes
   Offender: Gap, Inc. and other online retailers 
   When Hurricane Sandy hit New York City and areas of New Jersey and Connecticut in October 2012, many companies reached out on social media to offer condolences to those affected. However, others—including Gap, Inc. and American Apparel—tried to capitalize on the event as an opportunity to sell merchandise online.
   Response: Customers were quick to respond, criticizing Gap for its insensitivity and suggesting the company should have focused on sending out warnings and messages of hope to victims instead of using the popular “Sandy” hashtag to try to turn a profit during the tragedy. The online community suggested that Gap and American Apparel donate clothes to the flood victims as an apology.
   Damage Control: Gap later recanted their post and offered an apology of sorts, but the damage had been done, and many Gap customers vowed to not do business with retailer in the future. American Apparel has offered no such apology.
2. Social Media Mistake: Posting Political Opinions from Corporate Accounts
   Offender: KitchenAid Appliances
   What appeared to be a personal tweet about President Barack Obama’s deceased grandmother from a KitchenAid employee was sent from the corporate account.
   
   Response: Public backlash was swift and harsh. As thousands were actively following the “nbcpolitics” hashtag at the time the tweet was posted, critics were quick to call out the appliance manufacturer and demand an apology on behalf of the president.
   Damage Control: KitchenAid was quick to publish multiple, sincere apologies and ensured the public that the insensitive tweeter would no longer be responsible for managing Kitchen Aid’s Twitter feed.
3. Social Media Mistake: Misusing a Twitter Hashtag Relating to a Tragedy
   Offender: Celeb Boutique clothing retailer
   Another controversial tweet of 2012 came in July from fashion retailer Celeb Boutique following the deadly movie theater shooting in Aurora, CO. By not researching hashtags trending on Twitter, the post—which included “#Aurora”— outraged many who were mourning the tragedy.
   
   Response: The offensive remark was retweeted hundreds of times before it was deleted. Many were understandably outraged and took to Twitter to publically reprimand the brand.
   Damage Control: Celeb Boutique immediately issued an apology and deleted the tweet. They informed the public that their PR department was not based in the United States and was not aware of the tragedy that had occurred in Colorado. Although their apology was well received by the public, the gaffe prompted a lot of criticism about how many corporations have not yet mastered the refined skill of social media management.

These social media mistakes could have been avoided, had each corporation mandated strict social media guidelines. Make sure your brand doesn’t fall victim to the same missteps by implementing some social media best practices for your corporation.

SOUND OFF: How does your company manage its social media presences? What rules or guidelines must employees follow when tweeting or posting from a corporate account? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Do you already use Agile?

If so, make sure you discuss your methodology completely with the consultant, including which roles you expect them to fill. Agile methodologies vary widely, even those that fall under scrum.

If not, reconsider making a consulting project your first agile experience. The tools, vernacular and—more importantly—measures of success that you are accustomed to will likely be quite different. Don’t undervalue the debt of taking on a new methodology along with on-boarding a consultant.

Do you need an Agile coach?

If your team is new to agile, or if the consultant is taking on a leadership role within a relatively new agile team, you should seriously consider budgeting for agile coaching. Agile coaches help the organization understand the outputs and benefits of an agile project while helping the team transition to the new, highly transparent way of working together.

Do you have the time to be the chicken?

Regardless of role, YOU are an integral part of an agile project.

Stakeholders Can Expect: (at least)

• Weekly meetings
• A ping every other day to vet a concept or a solution on your user story
• To provide user stories
• To elect and champion a product owner that you trust

Product Owners Can Expect: (at least)

• Daily meetings
• Owning and prioritizing the backlog
• Attending the first part of planning meetings
• Facilitating sprint demonstration and retrospective meetings
• Daily interaction and availability to the development team
• Being called upon by the scrum master to help knock down barrier
• To provide user stories
• To elect and champion a scrum master you can trust

Does the budget support it?

Agile deliverables are minimum scope plus whatever value the development team built into them.

Is the project fixed bid? Consider going for a fixed bid of the minimum, critical scope only and handle any subsequent iteration as a “per iteration” cost. They can quote you on per iteration as long as they know the time box for your release cycle. Fixed bid for a vague scope rarely works well for either party. Fixed bid for “anything it takes to make me happy” is a waterfall approach and not an agile approach. Agile emphasizes redirecting resources flexibly to provide the best, most timely solution for the most urgent needs.

Consider instead a ‘per iteration’ bid. The consultant should, if they have an agile team that has worked together before, be able to estimate pretty fairly how much they can get done per iteration.

Do your release mechanisms and policies support it?

Quality and compliance are usually where complications occur. If you have a standard process that diverts your code through a week of QA and testing—you probably aren’t ready for this. Agile requires consistent and constant release, even if it’s every three weeks.

If your testing and quality/compliance gateways are baked into your development process then you’re in better shape.  Automated testing, TDD and a the product owner and scrum master addressing the external quality and compliance barriers are also to your benefit. I’m not saying you cannot do agile without baked-in quality, but it’s very difficult, and you should standardize the way you accomplish your compliance and quality needs before you bring in a consultant to do an agile project.

Can you tolerate imperfection?

Agile delivers solutions in small, incremental pieces. That means releasing something basic, rather than waiting until it’s complete with all of the features your customers want. Features are added through iteration. This allows you to react to the response to the release and adjust the next features accordingly.

Agile often delivers a greater number of defects unless a TDD solution is also applied. Not all defects are considered sacred and a priority simply because they are defects. If an enhancement is more important to the users and the defect is not critical, it will often wait.

What role do you want your consulting partner to play?

Fortunately for most businesses, technology is there to help. We now have a myriad of options including blogs and social media to enhance customer support. I recently used both to help my customers while many of my co-workers were on vacation for the holidays.

The first instance was right before the holidays. Everyone was already gone and one of my customers had a very technical question that was outside of my expertise.  Fortunately, I remembered that one of my colleagues had just written a blog post on that very topic.  I sent him the link—problem solved! It’s nice to have so many resources at your fingertips when customers need you to be there 24/7.

The second example involved a campaign we recently ran ultilizing a Twitter hashtag chat.  We had a great session with one of my clients that led to a follow up, face-to-face meeting to dive deeper into the topic.

Now here’s the tricky part: what do you do when your techology arsenal falls short? When the customer wants what the customer wants,  human intervention may be the best recourse. Sometimes good old-fashioned, personal attention (especially in a B2B scenario) is the only way to get the job done. Here’s another scenario that demonstrates that:

On December 28th in the early afternoon, I got an email from a client who wanted to talk about a big project.  I needed to get all the details.  Fortunately, I was able to drop what I was doing to meet with the client.  We had a very productive white-boarding session and came up with the solution.  Trying to do this via email a few hours before the holidays would have been difficult, at best.

So here are my “customer service mantras:”

• Use technology to stay abreast of a situation, but be involved in the follow up.
• The simple stuff can be handled via email, but the difficult challenges often require some real human interaction to solve.
• If someone is important enough to be a customer of your business, they are important enough to take care of in person.

Technology is truly an excellent tool to stay in touch with customers and increase engagement and loyalty.  But be cautious of becoming overly dependent on technology when the situation really calls for personal contact with the customer. In each of my examples, the result was increased customer loyalty and engagement because technology was used with discretion.  Staying focused on your goal of making your customers happy will enable you to find the perfect balance between using technology and personal contact.

Besides being shared frequently, what do these tweets have in common? What can social media marketing professionals learn from tweets?

The following are four characteristics, shared by these top tweets, that you can apply to your organization’s Twitter account:

1. Short
   You don’t have to use all 140 characters to make an impact. In fact, using less characters can actually encourage people to share, because it makes it easier for them to add their own comments when retweeting. Both of Twitter’s top tweets were less than 45 characters.
2. Personalized
   Your followers follow you for a reason. Consider what sets your company apart and how you can apply it to your tweets. Neither President Obama nor Justin Bieber’s top tweets contained a lot of context, but they were both heartfelt and shared in their own voice.
3. Timely
   President Obama’s most retweeted tweet of 2012 came election night. The timeliness of this tweet, just as the race was being decided, set it up to be shared by those already talking about the topic or waiting for the election outcome to be posted on Twitter.
4. Far Reaching
   Both top tweets came from well-known figures in popular culture. Part of the reason that Justin Beiber’s tweet received 231,167 retweets, was due to the fact that his account has 32,000,000+ followers. Growing—and engaging with—your follower-base on Twitter is an important part of spreading your message.

SOUND OFF: What do you think were the most memorable tweets of 2012? What strategies does your organization use to encourage people to retweet your content?

1. Second-Screen Revolution

According to Mashable: More than 80% of smartphone and tablet owners use these mobile devices while watching TV.

Although the statistics about the rise of the second screen are notable, it stands to argue that the second-screen revolution is still to come. As AdWeek points out, new apps and gaming consoles that allow consumers to use smartphones or tablets in tandem with their TV, have the ability to open up additional second-screen marketing, including conjoined ads.

2.  Content as Currency 

In 2012, many brands began embracing content marketing and thinking more like publishers. As companies continue to look for new ways to enhance conversation and the digital customer experiences by way of visual or text-based content, some argue that content may become your company’s most valuable asset in 2013.

3. Data Surplus, Insight Deficit

Big Data, one of the biggest trends in 2012, isn’t going anywhere in 2013. In fact, the amount of data being collected, mined, stored appears to be increasing. However, as David Armano reminds us, it’s not enough to have data, it’s also necessary to know what to do with it. Armano suggest that “2013 may be the year we focus less on data and start thinking about how to understand, interpret and make good use of it.”

4.  Mobile Payments

This constantly evolving trend seems to be picking up quickly with apps like Apple’s Passbook, as well as store-specific apps from retailers like CVS, Target, Starbuck promoting consumer to use their phone as part of the check-out process and big news about mobile payments services like Square. However, many of those who included mobile payments as trend to watch for in 2013, suggest that consumer demand will play a big factor in the progress of mobile payments in the year ahead.

5.  3D Printing

Although 3D printers hit the market in 2012, this trend is expected to explode in 2012. The typical consumer might not understand or be ready to fully embrace 3D printing, however extreme DIY enthusiasts, retailers who offer 3D printing and unique large-scale applications—like the creation of an 3D-printed version of James Bond’s Aston Martin “Skyfall”—might be enough to push this abstract technology mainstream.

6.  Embedded Technology

Think your phone is the only smart object in your life? Embedding technology might soon change that.

Mashable author, Lance Ulanoff suggests that embedded technology is poised up where you least expect it: utility poles, door handles, sidewalks. “Any place they can jam a sensor to capture — you guessed it — data, or let you quickly gain information about location, situational awareness, there will be embedded technology.”

SOUND OFF: What digital tech trends do you expect to be big in 2013? What trends are you looking forward to? Dreading? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

The most impressive aspect of dressage? When done well, you cannot tell that the rider is doing anything at all.

Horses are incredibly sensitive creatures. They are capable of reacting to slight changes in pressure that many humans wouldn’t even notice. The best riders spent thousands of hours training, usually riding multiple horses per week. They learn about the minuscule changes they have to make with their hands, arms, body, seat, and legs to exactly the movement they want out of the animal. Exactly how much change – and no more.

Horses bring their own minds into the arena. Some of the horses I’ve met are quite intelligent. Horses will spook at a shadow they’ve seen dozens of times or a tractor that backfires a quarter mile away on the next farm. Again, good riders seem to know this. They pick up cues from the horse, and they react. Because they are so well trained, they can react sooner, and with very little perceived effort, making a tiny correction to put the horse back on track.

Put succinctly, dressage equestrians are Agile.

A fast feedback cycle is the heart of agile. We write unit tests because automated testing is always faster than manual testing. We use build and integration servers because we are merging code written by multiple developers. When that code is merged, dependencies must be checked. We write behavior driven tests that ensure the application still performs in expected fashions. We have development servers that will publish the site and run our JavaScript tests for us. We use modern source control systems that allow for dozens, if not hundreds, of atomic commits each day.

I have reached a point in my career where these tools are not optional. These are my tools. When they are gone, I might as well be missing a hand or an eye. In fact, they are so integral in how I work, that I refuse to work without them. And if I go to a client who does not have them, I will even offer to set them up for the client. And if that still doesn’t happen, then I won’t be working for that client very long.

No matter how fast your feedback cycle is, I promise you it isn’t fast enough. Your unit tests need to be run every time code is merged. Every time. This point is not up for debate. What are the most and newest critical tests? Run those first. What are the slowest tests? Run those in batches. Are your most critical tests also the slowest? I can guarantee, without looking at your code, that you are mingling business concerns with infrastructure. Abstract those two pieces away from each other.

Do you test your client-side JavaScript? You should. Once your integration server builds your project and runs your server-side tests, code should automatically be deployed to a testing server. Your automation should invoke your QUnit or Jasmine test suite and report back on failures.

If you are waiting on a human, for specs, testing, or anything, quit it. Right now. You are wasting your time, killing your productivity, and hemorrhaging your company’s resources. If you need a tester, then get one on the spot, sitting next to the developer, and figure out an automation that works for the necessary conditions. We are software developers. Our entirety of work is remove mundane or difficult manual processes. Do not exacerbate the problem by creating your own manual work.

If a request does in fact takes that long, then you don’t have the right people working on the problem, you are not effective at sharing information, or you haven’t broken the problem down into small enough actionable units. In most cases, it is some combination of all three. You should be able to see noticeable progress daily. Yes. Daily.

How do users use your application? Yes, I know you wrote the application to be used a certain way. But humans are ingenious creatures that do strange things. If an error does make it to production, how quickly do your developers know about it? How quickly can you fix the problem or make adjustments? Can you change a page slowly over time in a way that coerces the user to work in an expected and manageable workflow? Major site redesigns almost always lead to lots of customer support calls.

Think you’re fast? Think again. We all want to build something amazing, and amazing is incredibly critical of itself.

Goal: Plant the tree.

Desired outcomes: Blossoms in the spring; shade in the summer; fruit in the fall.

Tool of choice: A hammer?

No worries. The claw side of the hammer can be used to start digging the hole. And if I attach a broad, flattened piece of sharp-edged metal to the striker side of the hammer, I can dig an even bigger hole. Of course, I might have to lengthen the handle a bit to get the right depth, so I’ll need to get a pole and some wire to attach it to the existing handle. Sometimes, the wire will flex, causing the lengthened handle to wobble and bend a bit, which interferes with the accuracy of my digging and slows me down, but if I add more wire and wrap it around both handles very tightly eleventy-seven times, the whole thing might hold. Y’know, if the blade doesn’t bend.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Why doesn’t she just use a shovel? It’s made for digging! Now she has a cobbled-together mess that’s going to require constant fixing, and it might not even work in the end.”

Indeed.

Well-defined needs make for better-fitting solutions

As more of our clients are seeing the value of using a content management system, or CMS, to serve up their digital and print content, we are sometimes asked to make do with hammers where a shovel might be more effective — or vice-versa. Budgets, schedules, and technical environments all play into our clients’ CMS selection process — and rightfully so. That’s reality. But all of those considerations can also be affected either by not scaling the desired outcomes to the tool or the tool to the desired outcomes.

Here are a few important considerations for evaluating both the project and the tool:

Content complexity. How complex is your content? Is it contained in a single site? Across multiple, interrelated sites? In print as well as digital media? Are there significant chunks or kinds of content that must — or can — be reused across digital properties or print collateral? Do you have documents, video, audio, or other media you wish to publish through your CMS? Do you have social media content you want to manage through your CMS?

Responsive design. Will your users want to engage with your content across multiple contexts, using different devices? Do you want a CMS that will support responsive design or adaptive content? Does it add its own CSS code, requiring code editing to get the right look-and-feel? How does it handle JSP? HTML5? Web fonts?

Workflow needs. How does your current content go to publication? Who creates it? Who approves it — and at what stages of its editorial journey? Can any of the process be handled through the CMS?

Ease of use. Who will be entering, editing, and approving your content? Who will be maintaining your CMS? What level of skill do these users have — or need to acquire — with the system — or with technology in general?

Integration with other systems. Do you have a customer relationship management tool (CRM) with which the CMS will need to integrate or share data? Email systems? Other business-critical — or even merely important — systems that will affect the publication, distribution, or success metrics for the content?

The amount of customization required to get the job done right. If your CMS of choice requires significant customization — especially work-arounds — to achieve basic functionality, you might want to keep looking. Extensive customization results in potential risk, and that risk is rarely worth the effort. You would be better off looking for a CMS that more closely fits your needs than you would be trying to bend, wire, and duct-tape a solution together.

Vendor service agreements. Your CMS vendor is an important partner in implementing your system. What kinds, levels, and duration of support do they offer? At what cost? Will they assist you with cut-over planning? System testing? Data migration? Do they offer training? Will they provide on-site support? How much? How often?

Not even the right hammer makes everything a nail

In addition to thinking about what you do want your content management system to handle, you’ll need to think about what you don’t want it to handle. If you aren’t intentional about what goes into your CMS — and what stays out of it — you’ll end up with a system resembling the digital content equivalent of a junk drawer. A few questions to ask yourself:

• Should your CMS be your system of record for auditing purposes, or are there other places where legacy or expired content can be stored?
• Must rich-media content, such as videos, be stored in the CMS, or would it make more sense to create a YouTube or Vimeo channel?
• Would you benefit from using a document management system or other repository for printable content, such as PDFs of brochures?

Asking yourself — and your business stakeholders — questions such as these can save time, expense, and frustration.

So can selecting the right CMS for your needs.

SOUND OFF: What challenges have you experienced with selecting the right CMS? What do you know now that you wish you knew then?

Looking to make great strides with tech next year, or even just improve your data security? Consider making one of these six technology resolutions for 2013:

1. Stop Using the Same Password Across All of Online Accounts—Even if your password is especially complicated and sophisticated, it is important not to use the same one across all of your online accounts. In the event a hacker decodes your stolen password, he or she will have access to all of your password-protected information. Use variety in your security credentials and keep your confidential information safe from harm.
2. Use Secure Phone and Computer Passwords —The prevalence of mobile devices used in both personal professional settings means that sometimes-sensitive data is more accessible to thieves.  Protect your data by taking the same security measures you would with traditional computers, choose passwords and PIN numbers that are difficult to crack, and never save passwords in documents that can be easily accessed if your device is stolen.
3. Stop Risking Personal Information on Unsecured Websites—Online shopping opens up new opportunities for hackers and identity thieves to acquire your credit card numbers and bank account information. To avoid security threats while online shopping, be vigilant about purchasing items on unsecured sites. Always look for https:// and refrain from submitting personal information to websites that lack Secured Socket Layer (SSL).
4. Safeguard Against Data Loss—Prevent the leakage of your business’ confidential documents by taking steps to protect sensitive information. Have Data Loss Prevention policies in place and make sure every employee is aware of and complying with these policies.
5. Protect Mobile Devices Against Malware and Viruses—Don’t forget, your mobile devices are vulnerable to attack and corruption. Make the resolution to protect mobile devices from hackers. Keep personal information personal by implementing malware prevention software and regularly scanning your device for potential threats and attempted break-ins from remote third parties. Additionally, avoid opening unfamiliar or suspicious websites, emails, and links on your mobile device.
6. Get More Out of Social Media and Online Marketing—How do you know if your online marketing programs are succeeding if you don’t measure your results? Make sure your CTAs lead visitors to an effective landing page. Use a web analytics service to see where visitors landing, how they got there, how long they stay, and if they ultimately convert. By tracking and evaluating campaigns, you can continuously and easily assess what work and what’s not.

Need help sticking to your 2013 tech resolutions? From information security to mobile business solutions, contact us to find out how we can use technology to provide solutions for your business.

SOUND OFF: Which of these six tech resolutions will you make in 2013?

My bathroom cabinet is a container for stuff — cosmetics, remedies, cleaning supplies, first aid materials, toilet paper, towels, and so on. Moreover, this container has a structure. It’s a big box, tipped up onto its side. The box has shelves, onto which I’ve placed baskets into which I’ve placed similar items. Or at least that’s what I’d initially done. Over time, things got a little messy as I tossed things that were “close enough” into various baskets. Then I started just putting things into whichever basket they’d fit into. Pretty soon, I had things spilling out around the baskets. And now…this.  

My clients’ websites often go through a similar process of devolving. They start out with a carefully-designed architecture, clear navigation, intuitive labels, a strong linking strategy. Their content was well-mannered, structured, contained.

And then things changed. And changed again. And pretty soon, their visitors started seeing a website that looked like my bathroom cabinet: a jumbled mess of disconnected messages, with disorganized navigation that made it impossible to find what they want or need without digging around for it.

So, how do you keep your digital content from getting out of control? Here are a few tips.

Clear navigation is better than searching

Just because your content is all in a directory, a library, a list, or another type of container, it doesn’t mean it’s organized. Many of the things in my bathroom cabinet are in decorative baskets — but I have to dig around in those baskets in order to find anything. Sure, a search engine is a nice tool to make available to your visitors, but you shouldn’t rely on it as your primary means of helping folks find what they need. Keeping your information architecture tightly organized will not only help your visitors but can also boost your SEO ranking.

Throw away anything that’s expired

Remedies past their expiration dates are often less effective than when they are fresh. The same can be said for digital content: You have to keep it fresh. Unless you have a legal or regulatory reason for maintaining extensive archives with previous versions of pages or posts, throw old content out. If nothing else, make sure outdated content isn’t visible to your end users, where it might be (at best) confusing and ineffective or (at worst) downright dangerous. Move it to a system of record, where you can access it if you’re audited but visitors don’t have to wade through it.

Plan before you add anything

Impulse buying in the beauty aisle is the bane of my bathroom cabinet’s organization. My clients sometimes have similar impulse control issues when they attempt to keep up with changes in their business or in the market. They simply add to their existing site: broader navigation, deeper menus, orphaned pages linked deep within a paragraph somewhere, hastily-created social messaging. Thinking carefully about how new content fits into the overall structure of your digital strategy might reveal that this new “have-to-have” message would be more suitable as a Facebook post or a promotional page — or reduced to a Tweet linking back to an existing page.

Governance controls clutter

Approval processes, expiration dates, editorial calendars, checklists, style guides — who can be creative with all of those rules? Rules are good. Trust me. If they do nothing else, they help ensure that your digital content is intentional. Planned. Carefully constructed. Meaningful.

My bedroom closet is governed by a policy stating that if I haven’t worn something in a year, it goes to Goodwill. In other words, I keep only what I use. My bedroom closet is neat, clearly organized, easy to use. I’m developing a similar policy for my bathroom cabinet: Keep only what I need. This, I believe, will cause me to think before I buy something else to put into it — where it fits, what its purpose will be, why I own it.

And we owe at least that to those people who engage with our digital content.

SOUND OFF: What processes have you implemented to keep your digital content under control and how are they working?

Blog Squad: This is your first book, right?

Jamie: Yes. My mother is a fiction writer and journalist, but this is the first time I’ve taken the plunge.

Blog Squad: What motivated you to write ASP.NET MVC4 and the Web API: Building a REST Service from Start to Finish?

Jamie: I believe in the usefulness of REST-based services and in using the new ASP.NET Web API to streamline development activities and deliver scalable, reusable services. And I thought this information was missing in the .NET community.

Blog Squad: Tell us about your professional background and your work at Fusion Alliance.

Jamie: I began programming in a high-temperature super-conductivity lab while I was a physics/math double major at Western Michigan University. I moved to Indianapolis after graduation and worked as a developer, lead developer, SQL Server DBA, software architect, and development team manager. My industry focus has been mainly in products: product architecture, product roadmaps, release cycles, and team management. I joined Fusion Alliance in March 2012 looking for opportunities to learn different technologies and to work with different clients and industries. My experience has so far been about 98 percent Microsoft, but I’ve begun branching out into Linux and Ruby development. I’ve also done work in architecture and development for mobile Android and iOS applications, SQL Server databases, ASP.NET websites, architecture and security assessments, and software valuations.

Blog Squad: What did you learn while writing your book?

Jamie: I found that researching and proving out the concepts in my book provided a great opportunity to learn more about REST services and the new ASP.NET Web API. I also learned a lot about the publishing process, thanks to my publisher, Apress. In addition to great manuscript feedback from Brian Wortman, a fellow consultant at Fusion Alliance, Apress surrounded me with about a dozen other people to help the book become a success. I’m also learning about marketing and social media, both for my book and for my personal “brand.” I’ve had a website and blog (www.jamiekurtz.com) for a few years now, but I recently established a Twitter account (@jakurtz)—mostly because a trusted colleague told me I should. Keeping up with everything sometimes makes me feel like I have two full-time jobs! I’ve also learned the tremendous value in working as a team on such technical materials.

Blog Squad: What do you do for fun?

Jamie: I spend time with my wife of 16 years, Kim, and my 12- and 10-year-old daughters. The girls are more interested in sports, dancing, and gymnastics than they are in tech (so far!). I like outdoor activities like backpacking, rock climbing, running, and biking. I’m also one of the drummers for my church, and I enjoy reading (I’m one of those people who is reading 10 books at a time, mostly action fiction and computer books) and watching romantic comedies.

Blog Squad: What’s next for you?

Jamie: I have two more books in the works, a mobile app in development, and I’m working on a product idea. I’m always looking for ways to share my passion with technologists, marketers, and product developers.

SOUND OFF: Do you know of conferences or speaking engagements where Jamie’s expertise would be beneficial? Contact us. We’d love to hear about it.

As we take a look back on the digital tech trends of 2012, we’re also taking a moment to compare those trends to our most popular blogs from the past calendar year. Here’s our top twelve most visited blogs published in 2012:

1.  12 for 2012: Security Buzzwords
   What were the biggest security buzzwords of 2012? Andy Stewart kicked off 2012 by sharing his predictions.
2. 3 Reasons You Should Adopt Adaptive Content
   As digital media changes shape and form, so must our content. In this blog post Denise Dilworth, shares three reasons you should incorporate adaptive content into your content strategy.
3. 8 Mobile Statistics Worth Sharing
   From iPads to smartphones, mobile technology was one of the hottest tech topics of 2012. In this blog post, we share eight conversation-starting stats about mobile in 2012.
4. 10 Awesome and Free Tools to Help You Make Your Own Infographics
   Lisa Ruff proves that you don’t need to be a graphic artist to create compelling infographics.
5. Three Mobile Security Best Practices that Everyone Should Know
   As the prevalence and sophistication of mobile devices increases, so do the security threats to these devices. If you own a smart phone, tablet, or other mobile device, you should know these best practices.
6. 5 Tips for Being More Efficient at Work
   Are you looking for a way to make better use of your time at work? Consider adding these five ideas for increasing your efficiency at the office to your 2013 resolutions.
7. Mobile Applications Strategy Deciding on Mobile App Features
   When deciding on mobile app features, Jeff Picket reminds us to consider three things: user experience, the devices where your app will be used and the core capabilities of those devices.
8. 5 Reasons Social Media Kills Customer Loyalty
   Social media is a great tool to build customer loyalty when done right. In this blog post, Jon Bausman provides tips to help businesses avoid killing their customer loyalty.
9. Geek: The New Chic!
   Geeks unite! Jan Evans discusses how our growing use of technology has led to a new appreciation for those gifted in making technology work.
10. Ad Hoc Reporting as a Catchall Requirement
    Doug Smith shares four best practices to address ad-hoc reporting requirement in new systems or projects.
11. Rate Your Website Visibility with a Quick SEO Audit
    An SEO audit you can perform on your own to determine if you’re in good shape to generate quality visits, or whether you need to make some adjustments.
12. Will the Real Shell Please Stand Up?
    Greenpeace’s elaborately executed Shell Oil hoax fooled even the most savvy of social media experts. Jon Bausman discusses what we can learn from this fake Twitter account.

SOUND OFF: What trends from 2012 do you predict will be still be relevant in 2013? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

What is #FusionThanks?

#FusionThanks is our way of spreading good tidings this holiday season. This Twitter hashtag is part of our 2012 digital holiday campaign and  includes an interactive webpage, as well as a unique way to give back to local communities and families in Indianapolis and Cincinnati. For every tweet, up to 1,000, containing the hashtag #FusionThanks sent between now and January 2nd, Fusion Alliance will donate $1 to support the needs of local schools in partnership with the United Way.

Here’s how it works:

1. Visit our #FusionThanks webpage
2. Enter your tweet in the box on the right and push “Tweet Now”
3. Watch your tweet appear on the page

It’s that easy! Plus, you don’t have to write all 1,000 tweets yourself, so spread the news!

SOUND OFF: How does your company celebrate the holiday season? We’d love to hear your seasonal stories. Share them with us by leaving a comment below.

Wonder how tech-lovers, organizations, and brands are using hashtags this holiday season? Here are a few creative holiday-themed social media promotions:

Instagram-inspired Advent Calendar

Adding tags to photos on Instagram makes those photos visible on public tag pages. 24 Grams is using this to their advantage with an Instagram-inspired advent calendar. For this project, the creators invite Instagram users to submit photos to complete their advent calendar by including the tag @24gram and specified hashtags (like #Gram9) within their photo caption.

“Pin to Win” Holiday Contest

A number of visual consumer brands are running holiday-themed contests on Pinterest to help spread the word about their products. Sephora’s holiday-themed Pinterest giveaway asked fans to use a special hashtag (#SephoraSweeps) in the description when pinning their favorite items. Sephora then tracks the images using the hashtag and selects a weekly winner at random.

Twitter Populated Webpages

Twitter hashtags don’t have to be reserved for Twitter.com. The tweets can also be populated on other webpages. Last holiday season, we created “Fusion Cheer,” an interactive webpage that allowed our employees and customers to share messages using a dedicated hashtag. (Stay tuned for this year’s holiday project!)

SOUND OFF: Are you using hashtags as part of a social media marketing campaign this holiday season? Share your idea or promotion by leaving a comment below.

Although online shopping can be extremely convenient, it also presents threats not present with traditional shopping. Here are three technology security threats to be on the lookout for when completing your online holiday shopping:

Threat: Clickjacking

Clickjacking is a malicious script, which takes over the links displayed for various webpages. When this happens, Internet users who try to click on this link are taken to an unintended destination. This malicious program can be hidden by anything that you’re asked to click on, including phony seasonal ecard, Christmas videos, and online coupons.

Internet Safety Tip: Avoid clicking any suspicious link, image or page.

Threat: Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

According to OWASP, Cross-site scripting is a “type of injection problem, in which malicious scripts are injecting into otherwise trusted sites. This kind of attack can steal any cookies or passwords you have saved in your browser.

Internet Safety Tip: Only visit reputable websites and be wary of unfamiliar sites offering deals that seem “too-good-to-be-true.” Another tip is to log out of bank and other sites that store confidential information when browsing or shopping online and to clear cookies frequently.

Threat: Mobile Malware

According to PriceGrabber, “82% of consumers plan to use mobile apps to save money when purchasing gifts this year.” As more individuals download and access mobile apps, there is a heightened possibility malware installed on phones.

Internet Safety Tip: Only download apps from trustworthy sources. Once apps are downloaded, make sure to check them and delete suspicious apps immediately. It’s also important to always keep your apps to date to prevent criminals from exploiting vulnerabilities in outdated apps to access your phone.

SOUND OFF: Are you shopping online this holiday season? What measures are you taking to protect yourself information and devices?

• When someone is trying to decide that the page exception they just uncovered in the app is a defect:  “You can’t be just a little-bit pregnant; of course it’s a defect.”
• When features need to be put on hold or completely eliminated from scope:  “Is this modified or full bed-rest?”
• When trying to decide if a particular change request needs extra funding:  “Will this be a natural labor or are we going to need an epidural?”
• And my favorite—when the project is spiraling out-of-control:  “Is this real labor or are we just having Braxton Hicks?”

So what does that have to do with requirements management, anyway?  As a requirements analyst, I take pride in understanding the audience I’m writing and presenting for and customizing my approach accordingly.  Even the IIBA views this particular skill as an attribute of  the Requirements Management and Communication compentency.  I do this in the “official” work I do, but how well do I this with the people I speak to everyday?  My point here is that I need to make sure the words I use, even in my day-to-day conversations, are understood by all of my team members.

Let’s be real though—not everyone is going to understand the references I list here.  And, I know, many of the terms my colleagues use are so deeply ingrained in their repertoire that asking them to change would cause a stir.  I’m not looking for that, only that we need to pay attention to the words and metaphors we use.

I know what you’re thinking: this isn’t going to fix the sports analogy problem.  I’m pretty sure I can’t fix that in a single blog post.  What I can do, though, is admit my confusion when I don’t understand analogies and metaphors and ask for clarification, and hope that will empower others on the team to do the same.  Ultimately, as a champion of clarity, isn’t that what I am supposed to do?  (And, of course, if I can do that without sending the Project to Triage to be monitored, all the better!)

SOUND OFF:  Are you tired of cryptic metaphors?  How do you make sure everyone on your team hears the same thing?

Wondering how to incorporate social media into your holiday marketing strategy? Here are four ideas to get you started:

1. Encourage Sharing
   In her Small Business Trends post, “Integrate Social Media Into Your Holiday Marketing Strategy,” Ilana Bercovitz suggests, the “best social media campaigns are those that involve your customers and encourage sharing. There are numerous ways you can get your customers to provide and share rich holiday content on your social media networks.”The best kind of sharing to encourage depends on your business. For instance, in a B2C organization, you might encourage your online community to tweet or post photos of their decorated Christmas tree, select a winner, and present them with a discount. In a B2B organization, you might ask them to share the biggest end-of-year challenge they face.As Bercovitz explains, “The holidays are the perfect time to bring people together on your networks by encouraging them to share their experiences.” Just make sure to keep your end-goal in mind when creating your strategy.
2. Showcase Your Holiday Spirit
   The holiday season is a great time to highlight your company culture. Do you decorate your office? Snap a few pictures and share them on Facebook or Instagram. Is caroling cube to cube a yearly tradition? Consider sharing a video of your efforts on YouTube.Another way to involve the entire organization is to create your employees by creating a place where they can share what differentiates your company (employees are the foundation of company culture, after all!). A special Twitter hashtag—like the #FusionCheer hashtag we used last year—is one way to allow employees to share their messages in a collective place.
3. Broadcast Good Tidings
   Think of your social media channels as a way to expand on the message showcased in a traditional company holiday card.Many companies create special artwork for their company holiday card. Consider updating your Twitter header, Facebook cover photo, or other social media channels with that same artwork during the month of December.Invite those receiving your holiday card to continue the experience online by including a specialized URL or QR code that leads to an online version of your card or a special holiday promotion.
4. Say Thank You
   The holiday season is a great time to say “thank you” to you customers. Consider providing them with a special discount, but don’t stop there. Use social media to let your customers to know how much they mean to you. Twitter and Facebook are both great places to spread the word about a “thank you” discount.Concerned your message will fall on deaf ears? Consider Facebook or Twitter ads as a way to target those who already “like” your Facebook page or follow your Twitter handle.

SOUND OFF: Are you incorporating social media into your holiday marketing strategy? If not, what’s holding you back from using social media?

Technical Debt We Explicitly Create

We are diligently working on a project. We’re adding unit tests. We’re following proper red-green-refactor methods. But we still need to worry about deadlines. We find code that needs rework, but we don’t have time. We go into our ticketing software and create a new technical debt user story. But time and money are constrained resources. The software ships without resolving that debt. Those stories stay in the backlog, waiting for developer availability.

Example: I am working on a code base that still accounts for the Indiana time zone, even though it (mostly) switched to Eastern Time in 2008. But I’m working on a different user story, and I don’t have time to fix the time zone-related code. Right now, we must recognize that we are consciously making the choice to let irrelevant and out-of-date code live in our software. It works, because our quick-fix was to make Indiana Time function identically to Eastern Time. However, it is plainly wrong. Indiana Time doesn’t even exist, so why is this a setting in the code?

Technical Debt We Implicitly Create

We get better at our jobs. We improve our skills. We learn more about languages and frameworks. In six months, twelve months, or two years we will be better developers than we are today. Sure, the code works, and yes, the tests pass. If you ever have developers that want to redo something they just wrote six months ago, you are looking at implicit technical debt.

In the first condition, we saw problems but lacked the time to fix them. In this situation, we are creating more debt simply because we don’t know that we’re creating more debt.

Example: Why are we even dealing with dates in the first place? Even though we get used to working in our current time zone, we should really work as much as we can in GMT. The current time is simply GMT plus an offset. Four years ago, I never did this. However, after running into so many time-based problems in my development career, I always think in GMT-plus-offset now, and I never store local times. Unfortunately, there is a lot of code that I wrote prior to this revelation that has not been updated to account for this new-found knowledge.

Technical Debt the World Creates For Us

The world moves on, these days faster than ever. Look at your smart phone. How many apps need to be updated right now? Between when I write this and when it is published, Google Chrome will update itself at least twice. Browsers change and web standards evolve. Operating systems change. Cloud-based vendors offer services that just a few year ago were not available or incredibly expensive. Old security algorithms become easily crackable, only to be replaced by new techniques.

We didn’t do this to ourselves, but we still must respond. If you have a web site, how does it look on an iPad? If you have desktop software, how is it going to work with touch response on Windows 8? Should I have a Metro version of my application?

Example: The day Indiana converted to Eastern Time is an example of technical debt the world created for us. We have dozens (hundreds?) of lines of code to work with various time zones relative to Indiana time. It all needs to go away; Indiana Time is obsolete. Any code relying on or accounting for Indiana Time needs to be refactored.

Keeping Tabs on Your Debt

Managing your technical debt is part of managing your product. It’s all about hedging your bets and understanding break-evens. Personally, pain is pain, and I will always be in favor of eliminating pain — for me or the next developer.

Keep on creating those technical debt stories, and make sure that you are keeping your debt in check.

When you think of mobile apps, email marketing, and other technology-enabled business solutions, “integrity” might not be one of the first words that comes to mind. However, we think it should. That’s why integrity—one of Fusion Alliance’s core values—is a very real part of all of the solutions that we provide to our customers.

For this post we asked team members from across our organization questions about integrity and business.  Jon Bausman, Amy Denison, Jeff Lefevere, and Lisa Rose share their thoughts on what “integrity” means and how this concept influences their work at Fusion Alliance.

What does integrity mean to you?

Lisa: Integrity to me means that a person should always do the right thing whether it directly benefits them or not.  It means that a person should always make the right decision even when nobody is watching and I feel that when a person lives consistently with a high level of values and virtues they are an example of a person that has integrity.

How does integrity apply to your work at Fusion Alliance?

Jon: I [try] to put the customer first in what I do and the decisions I make. That doesn’t always mean it is in the best decision of Fusion in the short term, but it is the right thing to do for the customer, and in the long run plays great benefits in the relationships we build and establish with our customers.

Jeff: There are two facets [to exhibiting integrity in my work at Fusion Alliance] – integrity with clients and integrity internally with…colleagues. With clients, it is doing what you say you’re going to do at level higher than what you believe [are] their expectations. It is focusing on their goals. It’s communication and it’s doing what is honorable for the relationship over the long haul, not doing what is convenient this month or this quarter, or worse, based on revenue.

Internally, it comes down to being consistent and accountable while performing at a high-level.  Attention to detail and problem-solving are two of the most under-acknowledged aspects of professionalism that engenders integrity in action.

Why is it important for businesses, especially those dealing with technology-solutions, to uphold integrity? 

Amy: With the fast pace and advances in technology, I find this kind of environment makes it easy for people to cut corners. Technology also makes it easier to broadcast unethical experiences. It only takes one small compromise in integrity to cause a ripple effect of damage. For these reasons, it is crucial for businesses to uphold integrity to preserve their product or service.

Jon: I think it’s important for any business to operate with integrity, regardless of the industry.  Not only do I believe it is a good long-term strategy pertaining to business relationships, both customer and supplier, but also with your employees. It allows me to trust my company and the direction our ship takes because I know the heart of those steering the rutter are with the best hope and intention.

Interested in learning more about our values and passion for the work that we do? Hear from our employees about how ingenuity, commitment, performance, and integrity influence everything we do. 

SOUND OFF: What values drive your organization? How do you infuse these values into the work that you do?

As a (user type/persona), I want to (insert desired action) so I can (insert revolutionary motivation here).

Without users to provide feedback, and without a product for anyone to provide feedback on, how do you address the issue of User Stories?

It’s Not Just Requirements

It’s tempting to slip back into a requirements mentality with a prototype.  Don’t do it!  You’ll miss all the benefits of that last half of the user story: “so I can (insert revolutionary motivation here).”  Requirements usually – and rightly – provide specific technical, compliance, and integration direction for whatever you are building.  You need those things in prototype or new product development.  You also need real User Stories and you need them before you design and engage in release planning.

What Should We Bring to Release Planning?

There are different beliefs on Iteration Zero, whether it does or should exist.  For convenience, let’s call whatever you do before your first release planning session iteration zero.  Here’s what you need to gather:

• Compliance Requirements – These usually come from your product owner, company SME or, if you’re lucky, a compliance and quality lead from your team.  These requirements usually already exist and cover all your applications and projects.
• Integration Requirements – This set usually comes from your technical lead and system administrator, both of whom will understand, based on a high level charter, how and where the new prototype will need to fit into existing systems. 
• Charter – This usually comes from the product owner.  It is a result of the Product Owner’s being a liaison with the company/sponsors before the project team even sees the work.  Charters should contain the high level goals of the application or prototype, the types of customers it serves, basic expectations around its release and performance, and authorization to do the work.
• User Stories – How do you get them?  It’s not as difficult as you think.

Gather Investors and Get Their Stories

Every project has parties interested in the company.  The Product Owner can educate them on the need and the format of a User Story.  In most cases, a Marketing/Product Manager, Sales Representative, Customer Champion, or Customer Service Representative can provide you with a starting list of user stories that cover basic functionality.  The Product Owner will have a harder time prioritizing and pruning user stories from these highly-invested “customers,” but it’s part of a Product Owner’s role to make the hard decisions about what the “thing” should do first, most and best.

In short, when there are no users, talk to people closest to the users for whom your work is intended.  Keep the list short and make it just enough to get to production.  You’ll be able to provide true user stories soon enough!

Strategy

A strategy is a solution, blueprint, layout, design, or idea used to achieve a specific goal. Strategy takes you from where you are now to a where you want to be.

Strategy is very flexible and open for adaptation and change when needed. A strategy does not specifically say how you will arrive at this end.  That is where your plan comes in.

Plan 

A plan is an arrangement, a pattern, a program, or a scheme used to achieve an objective.

Unlike a strategy, a plan is very concrete in nature and doesn’t allow for deviation. If “Plan A” doesn’t work, for instance, you don’t revise “Plan A” and try again, you move onto “Plan B.” In this case, “Plan A” and “Plan B” would be two totally different approaches.

When comparing the two, strategy can be seen as the idea for “how” to achieve a goal and planning can be seen as the measurable “how-to.” For example, if your goal is to increase app downloads, you strategy might be to add more download prompts to your mobile website, and your plan is how specifically you will do that.

Have a problem or a goal, but stuck when it comes to strategy and planning? Contact us to find out how Fusion Alliance can help provide a fresh prospective.

Stuck in the Mundane

We all have boring work. If your employees are highly-skilled, highly-technical resources, the key to survival is to minimize and reduce this work. There is no learning to be found in the mundane. By its very nature, you know everything there is to know about this type of activity.

The best developers are lazy — they never do repetitive work. I’ve always gone by the rule of three. (1) Do an activity. (2) Do it again, to make sure you’ve got everything figured out. (3) Find a way to never do that activity again.

Hard Work is Hard

You can’t teach calculus to a student who has yet to learn algebra. Maybe, you can show some really high level concepts. Perhaps you can teach that calculus is about understanding the way variables change with respect to each other. But what will that student really be able to do?

It’s incredibly difficult to have any learning take place if the problem is too far beyond your current abilities. Typically, we will take steps to mitigate the ‘newness’ of a project. For example, you might be really interested in learning BackboneJS. Many examples of BackboneJS are written in CoffeeScript. Most examples demonstrate closure and limit the variables exposed to the window scope. (These are concerns that can be difficult for JavaScript developers to fully grasp.)

Want to learn one of these ideas without the distractions of the other? Then you’re going to need to up your JavaScript game (and possibly learn the basics of CoffeeScript so you can follow along) before tackling BackboneJS.

Many times, we will find new developers in a state where everything is difficult. First, there is always a real-world business problem that developers have been asked to solve. Maybe your newest employees are familiar with it; most likely, they are not. What technologies are in place? What kinds of servers and clients does your solution use? Is this a completely new framework, or is this a part of an existing framework that you’ve never used? Do your developers know the language or version of the language?

Finding the Sweet Spot

Ultimately, the best work is done in a magical place between boring and impossible. You’re looking right over the boundary of your skills — a task that is just a little bit new. You can see where a solution needs to go and how that solution needs to get there. You have successfully limited the amount of new information, or you have abstracted it away in such a fashion that the tiniest details don’t matter at that moment.

This place – the sweet spot – will probably be a little bit uncomfortable; you’re venturing into the unknown. You should learn to enjoy a little bit of discomfort. It means you’re pushing yourself, asking more of your skills, past experiences, and capabilities. Learning is meant to be a just a little bit of a challenge. If there’s no discomfort, no challenge, then you’re not learning.

The best developers know how to maximize the time they spend in the sweet spot. They break down problems into small units of work. They understand fundamental design patterns well enough to know when to apply one type of architecture vs. another. They are enough of a polyglot to know when to leverage the capabilities of the database vs. the application server vs. the client. They know how to turn a single user story they cannot solve into lots of little problems that they can solve.

Optimize for the sweet spot. Find little successes. Watch the little successes add up.

SOUND OFF: Do you have any examples of how you’ve optimized for your sweet spot? We’d like to hear your story.

Mobile websites should not be thought of as your website’s “downsized little brother.” In fact, more and more marketers are prescribing to the theory of “mobile first” when it comes to their digital strategies. Mobile first focuses on eliminating everything but the most useful, usable and desirable features of a website, allowing users to get to what they want – fast and without distractions.

So, what’s the best way to do a usability test on a mobile device?  In a lab?  Hmmm. That doesn’t exactly mimic the conditions of the “real world.”  In the field?  Seems a bit awkward – like it would involve carrying around a lot of equipment.  Mobile user testing is still an emerging area of user experience testing, but there are a number of options to consider, each with its own pros and cons.

Wearable Equipment

Pros:

• Good for field testing
• Allows participant to hold the device in one hand
• Participants can use their own devices
• Provides adequate video quality

Cons:

• Intricate and time consuming setup
• Equipment can be costly
• Equipment is intrusive, uncomfortable and heavy
• Does not capture the participant’s face

Here’s an example of the LiliPUT portable lightweight mobile usability testing system.

Screen capture applications

Pros:

• Simple setup
• Allows participant to hold the device in one hand
• Captures screen and face  (UX Recorder uses the front-facing camera on iOS devices to do this!)
• Provides adequate video quality

Cons:

• There’s no app that currently supports all mobile platforms preventing participant from using their own device; device learning curve may influence performance, skewing results. (although UX Recorder is working on an Android version)
• Requires the installation of the app on the participant’s phone (participants may not like that)

UX Recorder is one example of a mobile screen capture application for user testing.

Document Cameras

A document camera with autofocus is controlled remotely from a laptop and records device screen and participant’s fingers.

Pros:

• Simple setup
• Allows participant to hold the device in one hand
• Captures screen, face and hands (need second camera)
• Provides adequate video quality

Cons:

• Equipment can be costly
• Participants must stay within a defined camera range which can interfere with natural movement
• The device must lay on a desk or be held at a flat angle

Readymade mounts

Mr. Tappy is an example of a readymade mobile device mount that we are going to try in an upcoming usability study.  We’ll get back to you with our assessment in a few weeks!

Pros:

• Simple setup
• Allows participant to hold the device in one hand
• Captures screen, face and hands (need second camera)
• Participants can use their own devices
• Provides adequate video quality

Cons:

• Can be costly (Mr. Tappy is about $300)

Do-it-yourself mounts

The DIY mount pictured here evolved into Mr. Tappy. It was made by a UX researcher, who fashioned it from plastic cut with a hacksaw and bent over a househhold toaster. As mobile phones with buttons evolved into smartphones with touchscreens, a more flexible and stable solution was required—thus Mr. Tappy!

Pros:

• Inexpensive
• Allows participant to hold the device in one hand
• Captures screen, face and hands (need second camera)
• Participants can use their own devices
• Provides adequate video quality

Cons:

• Time consuming to build and set up
• Mount must be light enough to allow participant to hold the device in one hand

Check out these other helpful and informative mobile user testing resources:

• Make your own iPhone usability testing sled
• 10 Tips for Usability Testing
• Do-it-Yourself Mobile Usability Testing

SOUND OFF: Do you have any mobile usability testing tips?  We’d love to hear them.

What is Fusion ComTrac?

Fusion ComTrac is a web-based commodities management system that is a flexible and configurable solution for handling commodity management throughout the lifecycle of a commodity.

ComTrac was originally created as a solution for the utilities industry. Although ComTrac started off as a way to track coal and the other bulk commodities used to generate electricity, today it is used for a variety of industries and applications.

The Benefits

Fusion ComTrac helps provide a more holistic view of an organization’s supply chain. This completely configurable, web-enabled solution is rapidly deployable, and built on an open architecture.

As a result, Fusion ComTrac gives companies a new ability to dial in their processes, model alternatives, and get in front of their operations—all while having a clear view of the entire system.

The Results

We’ve found that as organizations gain a clearer, more holistic perspective of the supply chain, work in that given industry tends to become more rewarding, job satisfaction increases, meaningful innovation takes place, and people throughout the system benefit.

We’ve also seen Fusion ComTrac users increase profits, experience significantly cleaner cash flow, and have tighter control over their variables, and increase their ability to see beyond their own businesses—allowing them to consider the terrain of their industry, and to chart their courses accordingly.

SOUND OFF: What’s your organization’s greatest data challenge? What tools do you use to help overcome challenges that come with complex data?

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Vijay Govindarajan and Mark Sebell discussed different approaches to structuring innovation as well as the management strategies—top-down or bottom-up—that best support those approaches.  According to Govindarajan and Sebell, while bottom-up management works well for incremental innovations, a top-down management strategy is necessary for breakthrough innovations.

Breakthrough Innovations

Unlike incremental innovations, which allow companies to operate as normal while innovating, breakthrough innovations can radically change the business.

Based on Govindarajan’s and Sebell’s discussion, breakthrough innovations have two things in common:

1. In the Beginning, Breakthrough Ideas Have No Benchmarks or Familiar Metrics
   According to Govindarajan and Sebell, familiar metrics can kill a breakthrough innovation. If a new idea is truly “outside-the-box”, there is nothing to measure it against.
2. Higher Breakthrough Goals Require Higher Level Buy-in
   When it comes to the pursuit of breakthroughs, “the higher the goal, the higher the role.” In other words, the bigger the change an organization is trying to make, the higher the level of executive buy-in needed.  In order to have a breakthrough, the organization’s executive leadership must be willing to support the process by making some of the critical strategic decisions and providing people, money and time.  Their leadership is also needed to support the process when the organization begins to resist change. As Govindarajan and Sebell explain, a top-down approach is needed because management “can’t wait until everything is ‘ready.’ They must interact with their work teams frequently throughout all of innovation’s phases, from the beginning.”

In some cases, breakthrough innovation isn’t the best process for an organization. Both incremental and breakthrough innovation provide benefits depending on the project and company seeking to make the change.

SOUND OFF: How does your organization approach innovation? How does management strategy influence your process?

How Google’s Page Redesign Could Affect Your Business

Doug Scamahorn brought us this article on Google’s SERP (Search Engine Result Pages) that covers:

1. How the New Layout Impacts Organic Search
2. How the New Layout Impacts Paid Search
3. The Net Impact

Columbia Sportswear Ski Bum Scholarship Contest

Do you dream the dream of living the dream?

#skibumscholarship

Jon Bausman, our resident social media expert,  enjoyed this great example of brand positioning and market penetration with the use of digital tools.  Using several social platforms like YouTube and Facebook, Columbia creates excitement with its users and converts user participation into membership on their email marketing list.

Sitebeam: Test your websites for everything

Jeff Lefevere likes Sitebeam for competitive research for client analytics analysis.  Compare websites with side-by-side rankings, and put your test results directly into presentations.

Ratchet: Prototype iPhone apps with simple HTML, CSS, and JS components

Travis Moser, one of our talented developers, found a helpful tool in Ratchet, a tool from the people who brought you Twitter Bootstrap. Ratchet is released under the MIT license and you can find it on GitHub. Easily create components like bars, lists, buttons, segmented controllers, sliders, and popovers.

The iPad robot that can let you go anywhere in the world—without ever leaving your living room

My contribution to this post feeds my love of gadgets and tech.  A stationary web cam doesn’t give you the embedded feeling of “there.”  Although I can’t keep up with everything, this particular innovation caught my eye as a pricey but fun option for distributed teams.

The options are endless.  I’m considering it as a way to have our far away cousins sitting at the Thanksgiving table with us.

As a way to make our Indianapolis Colts sponsorship socially engaging, Fusion launched the #OptionPass campaign.  One facet of the campaign is hashtag chats.  Each Wednesday from 12 – 1pm EST following a Colts regular season home game, we cram our digital subject matter experts and business development team into a room with lots of food, our laptops running and a big screen TV.  Each tweet that has #OptionPass shows up in a feed and our team is ready to respond.  It’s like a chat room but using twitter hashtags.

Clients, prospective clients, friends, random folks from the Twittersphere are all welcome to fire away with their digital questions.  Our Fusion team is ready to answer, help guide them, and in the end, demonstrate not only our collective knowledge but our consulting expertise.  Some of you reading this may be familiar with hashtag chats and some of you may just be trying to figure out Twitter in general.

To help, we edited one of our most recent hashtag chats to show you how our Fusion team works together to help answer questions and how this kind of marketing opportunity can provide real business leads.

Our hastag chats usually begin with introductions and general warm and welcoming banter, just like you would begin any kind of conversation.  Gina Begin was kind enough to join us.

Gina had several questions that were influencing her consulting and private contracting work, including her blog.  Here is one of them:

Gina was not the only person that day to participate.  Later on, Niche Snowboards join us with a few of their questions.  Part of the  beauty of these hashtag chats is you can jump in and jump out as you please.  Join, ask your questions and get some free consulting from a room full of subject matter experts, and then continue with your day.

Have a question?  Interested in joining us for our next hashtag chat?  It’s easy!  Just follow the 3 steps below.  If you don’t have a Twitter account, we can walk you through that too.  So bring your questions and fellow tweeps, and we’ll see you at our next hashtag chat!

Really WORK in GitHub – Huboard

I recently explored an application that displays GitHub issues and defects, as well as pull requests, from your repositories in Kanban work board format. In this post we will refer to a Kanban Board, NOT the Kanban methodology. A Kanban Board is just an information radiator that shows where the work is in the development cycle. The Heroku application, Huboard,  has pros and cons for an agile project team, but overall can provide a lightweight, easily adopted solution to managing a sprint backlog for a distributed team.

 What Huboard DOES

• Provides a virtual agile work board WITHIN GitHub. No plugins or bridges to other applications.  Everything is right there.
• Allows you to decide what work will show up on the board. Work begins in the backlog by default OR you use a feature that allows you to designate what goes on the board. This keeps things clean.
• Allows you to define work stage columns with any name you desire. Backlog is hidden behind the left arrow and appears when clicked.
• Uses GitHub labels and milestones. Those work “stages” are labels in the GitHub repos. You can apply them to almost anything and still use labels the way you used to within GitHub. Milestones provide an easy view on the left-hand side of how work is categorized. This is particularly useful for epics.
• Updates with drag and drop. In the Kanban board view you can drag and drop work into different columns, updating the labels within GitHub.
• Allows access to the GitHub issue directly by clicking the #Number from the Huboard view.
• Honors user permissions. Users only see issues for repos they have permissions for, even if more repos are connected to that Huboard.
• Shows multiple repos on one Huboard. An organization can show all or a few select repos on a Huboard.
• Provides basic, high-level progress on issues at the milestone level.
• Has an active and responsive developer, RaughRyan, in Austin, Texas. I submitted several requests that were entirely project manager centric. Although Huboard’s current user base is mostly developers, Ryan caught the vision and responded to my issues quickly and thoroughly.
• Actively iterates. Here are a few of Ryan’s recent blog posts on Huboard that highlight its recent iterations:
  • Huboard Goes RealTime
  • Huboard New Feature Overview
  • Huboard – GitHub issues made awesome

What Huboard DOESN’T Do

• Estimation tools or mechanisms. You’ll have to find a way to do this within your issues and repos.
• Detailed metrics or reporting. Look elsewhere for that.
• Combine milestones with the same name. As a PM, I’d like to be able to combine milestones for multiple teams. For example, we use the Milestone label to denote an epic. If I have a community team working on the epic Flash training, the dev team and QA team doing the same, they all have separate repos in GitHub.  I’d like to be able to aggregate those milestones and show a progress bar from that point.  The issue is in his backlog and I’m sure he’ll get to it like he has my other feature requests.

My Humble Opinion

Would I use it again?
Yes. With an open source project or a development heavy project with a technically savvy product owner, yes. With a multi-track project with larger teams and a demand for dashboard-type reporting, then no. I’d go with a system like Sprint.ly with GitHub integration to pull requests.

Can non-developers “get it”?
Yes. The interface, once set up, is understandable and relatively intuitive. You will probably need a developer’s assistance to set it up.

How long does it take to set up?
About ten minutes.

Would I Reccomend it?
If your priority is simplicity and a digital work management tool for a distributed team, Huboard may be for you. It’s fast to set up, has a low learning curve, and will either become your Kanban board or help your team determine exactly what they do and DON’T want out of a digital work board.

Vitals Recapped

1. Overview in Plainspeak: GitHub issues made awesome
2. GitHub Project: https://github.com/rauhryan/huboard
3. Developer: https://github.com/rauhryan
4. Website: http://huboard.com/
5. Twitter: https://twitter.com/Huboard
6. Blog: http://lostechies.com/ryanrauh/author/ryanrauh/

• Why aren’t leaders on board?
• Why doesn’t culture change?
• How do you change culture?

Power suggests that asking questions such as, “Why don’t we try new practices?” and “Why does is take a long time to change habits?” can help uncover fears that are preventing change.

If, as Powers suggests, the fear of change is the root cause of failures to create a culture of continuous improvement, then how do you over come that fear? According to Powers, there are three effective ways to embrace fear of change.

Overcoming the Fear of Process Improvement 

1. Incorporate Those Involved
   Allow those whose work will change to be involved in defining the improvements.
2. Provide a Safe Place to Fail
   Welcome failure in experiments of new ways to of working as a way to learn and improve. Removing the downside risks, such as being fired, and provide upsides to making those changes, such as profit sharing and promotions.
3. Hire Employees who Support Your Organization’s Mission
   Hire self-starters who are commitment to your mission. According to Powers, “employees will embrace change that furthers the mission of the organization if they view the value of that change to the customer as greater than the pain of change.”

SOUND OFF: What fears have held your organization back from improving processes? How have you worked to overcome those fears?

OK so here’s the thing, I always know when my grandfather is at the piano because he always starts and ends with the same songs -  that’s what is in his set list.  For the record, he closes with “Five-Foot Two”.   Prior to that we are treated to a variety of hits from the 40′s such as:

• Sweetheart of Sigma Chi
• Shine on Harvest Moon
• It Had To Be You
• Traumeri

His performance is effortless. He started playing when he was a young child, bought his first piano when he was 18, started a band, the “Hoosier Lucky 7″ (see the pic above, Gramps is the cool cat at the piano) and plays to this day. At 103 I don’t know anyone who has demonstrated more committment to their art. His song selections are always appropriate, he chooses the songs for the occasion and the length of time he has (or wants) to play. He uses his experience to guide his set list.

So what does this have to do with Requirements Management anyway?  One of the questions I pose to Analyst candidates during interviews is along the lines of “if you were in charge of the requirements mangement effort, what would you do?” The best answers come from folks who can say “I start here, and depending on the project, I may include a, b, c, z, y, w or if it is this kind of other project I will add in j, k & l and I round it all out with this process which includes…” Essentially, they are giving me their requirements management process “set list.” This kind of answer tells me that the candidate has enough depth of experience to know what works well, understands that process is important and that requirements management is about using the tools and techniques that are appropriate for the project.

Let’s be real though, sometimes memory can fail us.  We may not remember what works best in certain situations, or worse, we may think we remember that something works well, when it doesn’t! Kind of like when Gramps forgets that he already played a song and replays it during the set. (Cut him some slack, remember, he is 103!) What we do keep with us is the process.  Gramps does remember which notes to play and what order to play those notes to make the melody. Our analysis experience gives us the techniques to use and the order to perform them.

I know what you are thinking, “So, are you saying that Requirements Management is like playing music?” Well, I guess I do feel that way some days. The more I practice, the better I am at a particular technique. The more often I perform a particular task, the more likely I am to remember how to do that task. The more projects I complete, the wider my repetoire becomes. When I work in harmony (pun intended) with other analysts on our set list, the work produced is far better than my solo attempts. So, yes, Requirements Management is like playing music!

Thanks, Gramps, I always knew that those hours spent listening to you play would pay off!

SOUND OFF:  What’s in your Requirements Management and Analysis “set list?”

That’s how I feel about social media.  Many people new to the social media scene will ask, “Well, what can social media do?”  and I normally respond with a smile and hearty, “Well, what do you want it to do?”  It’s important to first ask yourself what you want to get out of it.  What’s the goal?  Knowing that will dictate whether social media is the right tool and if so, suggest how you might use it.

Here are six different ways you can utilize social media to reach your goals:

1. Reach.  Is your current marketing strategy not working?  Is it working,  but you want to expand your reach and connect with more potential customers?  According to Mindjumpers, social media sites and blogs reach 80% of all U.S. internet users.  That’s a large number.  Let that soak in for a minute.  8 out of 10 Americans are utilizing some form of social media.  So, if your goal is to expand your current reach, social media might be a great place to start.
2. Search.  Marketers rate social media as the second-most important factor in search, second only to strong content (BtoB Magazine).  Let me give you a personal example.  Google me. “Jon Bausman.”  Right now.  It’s okay, open a new tab (‘cause you’re going to want to come back and read the rest of this blog!).  What do you see?  I own the first 8 results when it comes to my name on Google, with the top three being Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.  Click on Images and run the same search.  Do you see a consistent image showing up?  Not only do I own my web search but also when you search visual content, my social media avatar dominates the landscape.
3. Engaging Content.  Did you know that YouTube is the third most searched site on the web (Alexa)?  If content is king, then video and visual content are ruling the kingdom.  It is powerful to take your content and add visuals and sound.  Facebook also gives priority to this type of content which is illustrated by their Edge Rank algorithm.
4. Monitoring the Conversation.  Whether you’re on social media or not, people are talking about you.  About 40% of online users have mentioned a brand on Facebook or Twitter.  Is it good?  Is it bad?  Either way, it’s important to listen to what consumers are saying about you.  If you don’t already see the impact this can have on your business, allow me to transition to “digital duct tape” use #5.

5.  Social Commerce.  According to AYTM, 81% of customers reach out to their friends and family members on social networking sites for advice before purchasing products.  You skeptics out there might be saying, “Well, people may ask for advice on social media, but do they listen to what respondents have to say?”  Uh, yeah.  AYTM reports that 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations.

6.  Transparency.  Social media allows online users to readily access information and provide companies the opportunity to share their information transparently.  eMarketer reported that 94% of buyers felt C-suite social media participation enhances a brand’s image and 77% said they are more likely to buy from a company whose CEO uses social media.

Allow me to paint a picture for you using these 6 “digital duct tape” points.

I purchase a widget from your company, and after trying it out, I am frustrated with the product and poor customer service.  Not an unfamiliar experience, right?  I’m so upset that I want to share my experience with others – Reach – and I turn to my strongest and most powerful outlet, my social media channels – Search.  I decide to make a YouTube video explaining what I don’t like about the widget, why it was a bad purchasing decision, and how it was a terrible customer experience – Engaging Content.

Your company decided not to invest in monitoring conversation surrounding your brand on social media.  So, not only did you miss the opportunity to resolve the situation, but you also missed the opportunity to see my video views climb higher and higher – Monitoring the Conversation.

Someone else across the country is contemplating buying your widget, but wants to do some online research first.  He Googles “widget” and, due to my search rank and frequent views, finds my video explaining my terrible experience.  He is quite surprised by my feedback and decides to ask on Facebook and Twitter what some of his family and friends think of the product.  Sure enough, he hears back from a few people with stories similar to mine (Social Commerce).

One of his family members recommended using the competitor brand and shared that.  After monitoring the online conversation, a competitor company noticed that consumers were unhappy with a certain feature of their widget.  The competitor CEO tweeted a video apology and assured his viewers that they would fix this issue and this new feature would be implemented in their next widget. (Transparency).  The fact that competitor company was listening to its customers and the CEO went out of his way to communicate that they were making the changes on the product was enough to seal the deal for me to buy the competitor’s widget.

So there you have it: 6 different ways social media can be the most versatile tool in your digital tool kit.

SOUND OFF: How does your company use social media?  Have you explored all the different ways social media can help you reach your goals?

Not too long ago, Social Media Examiner shared 16 creative ways to use Twitter for business. The following are a few of our favorites and how they can be applied to your organization’s Twitter account:

1. Change your visual branding

Twitter allows you to customize many aspects of your Twitter profile page. This provides you with a number of creative visual branding opportunities for your organization. Customizable aspects include:

• Your Twitter header image
• Your Twitter background
• Your Twitter profile picture
• The color of your background and links

2. Create a Twitter landing page

Oftentimes organizations use their Twitter bio to link directly to their website or blog. Social Media Examiner contributing author, Carlene Kingston suggests using a special landing page and using that page as your Twitter profile web address. As Kingston explains, “A Twitter landing page is a special page on your website designed to introduce people from Twitter to your business. It’s like having a greeter there to help people get the scoop on your business and how you use Twitter.”

Your origination’s Twitter landing page could include:

• A personal message from a notable member of the organization
• Details about your business products and services
• Additional contact information
• Information about the people behind your organization’s Twitter account

3. Rethink your follow strategy

Maintaining a good following-to-follower ratio is important. Every Twitter account can only follow 2000 people total. If you want to follow more than that you must first increase the number of people following you.

One way to preserve your following-to-follower ratio is to weed out bots. These twitter accounts are not run by real people and don’t provide business value. How do you avoid following a bot?

• Don’t automatically follow everyone who follows you.
• Don’t follow people with an egg picture.
• Check their followers. An account that follows many people but only has a few followers is probabily a spammer.
• Review their tweet. Spam accounts and bots often only send retweets, quotes, or blast the same message to many users over a short period of time.
• Check the bio to see if the account is listed as a bot.

4. Bookmark tweets you want to keep

An alternative to marking a tweet as one of your favorites is to bookmark it. This allows you to keep a private record of tweets and saves your favorites for items directly related to your business’ Twitter strategy. Each tweet has a unique web address that you can bookmark using your browser or a bookmarking tool. To get to the unique URL for an individual tweet, click “expand” and then “details” on the tweet in your stream.

5. Expand the Twitter conversation to your blog

Twitter now makes it easy to embed a tweet into a blog post. These embedded tweets not only look like a tweet, but also have the same interactive features as Twitter.

Taking a particular conversation from Twitter to your blog allows you to expand the discussion with commentary that is longer than 140 characters, while still leaving it open to additional outside comments on both Twitter and your blog. This strategy allows you to target industry influencers in a new way.

SOUND OFF: How is your organization using Twitter? Share your ideas below and join us for our next #OptionPass chat to see first-hand how we’re using Twitter as part of our digital marketing strategy.

If you Google “define social network,” you receive the following web definitions:

1. A network of social interaction and personal relationships
2. A dedicated website or other application that enables users to communicate with each other by posting information, comments, message, images, etc

When you break down the definition, email fits many of those characteristics. Could email in fact be the original social network?

Email: The First Social Network?

According to Merriam Webster, the term “social media” first dates back to 2004; email, on the other hand, was used as early as 1972 and rapidly grew in popularity as household computers became a common feature.

When you compare email to other social networking sites including those popular now, such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as those often credited with being the first such as Friendster (launched in 2002) and MySpace (launched in 2003), email was certainly first. However, does it have enough similarities to be called a social network?

Is Email a Social Network?

In his blog post, “Email: The First –and Largest- Social Network,” Jeremiah Owyang argues that depending on how you look at it, email can be considered a social network, along side social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Owyang explains, “If you agree that Facebook, a private community of your friends is a social network, then so is email. They both have the same requirements 1) profiles (emails have signatures), 2) Ability to connect to each other (the act of emailing, and often responding, 3) Do something useful (email users share information, and sometimes collaborate).”

One could also argue that with the advent of the e-newsletter and email marketing, email is now more “social” than ever, with the ability to both tailor content and distribute it as a mass message. Furthermore, marketers can now add “share this” features into their email marketing campaigns in order to make the sharing process easier.

On the other hand, the features of email and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter do differ on some basic levels:

• Content on social networks tends to be public, allowing it to be crawled and indexed by search engines. Email on the other hand, tends to be a more closed-form conversation.
• Social networks tend to allow collaboration in real-time. Unlike a thread of emails that can become splintered as different individuals respond to the same message at different times, social networks like Facebook and Twitter refresh quickly and keep messages from becoming disjointed.

Regardless of whether you think about email as a social network or a digital marketing tool all it’s own, an integrated digital marketing strategy can incorporate all of these tools. Email isn’t going anywhere anytime soon; trends suggest that email and other social networks will be able to comfortably co-exist for a long time to come.

SOUND OFF: What do you think makes something a social network? Would you consider email the first social network, a communication form all it’s own, or something else? Join the conversation by leaving a comment below.

Thinking about using Google+ for business? Here are five creative ways to use Google+ as part of your digital marketing strategy:

1. Live Q&A
   Google+ hangouts provide the unique opportunity to answer questions live in front of your customers. Google+ hangouts even allow you to retrieve questions before you go live.
2. Interactive Video Demonstrations
   Demonstrations are a great way to showcase your knowledge as an expert or help show that your products and services actually work. Google+ hangouts allow you to provide real-time video demonstrations.
3. Add Simplicity to Events
   Whether your event is in-person, on air, or virtual, promoting an event on Google+ provides a number of unique promotional features including the ability for the recipient to read and respond to comments, and RSVP right from inside inboxes. The unique features extend outside invitations. For examples, Party Mode allows guest to snap and share photos from the event in real time.
4. Connect with Influencers
   As SEOmoz explains, Google+ provides 17 different notifications that, if used correctly, can help you connect with influencers in your industry. Some of these actions cannot be utilized by brand pages, however others can help get your brand get on a influencers radar.
5. Monitor Keywords
   Google+ Sparks are an often-overlooked feature of the Google+ interface. Sparks provide an easy way to monitor keywords, such as your organization’s name, right from your Google+ dashboard. Here’s how:
   - Type your keyword into the search bar
   - Select “Sparks” from the drop-down menu
   
   - Click “Save this Search” on the right-hand side of the screen

Your Google+ Sparks will then appear as categories along-side your circles.

SOUND OFF: Does your organization have a presence on Google+? What strategies and tactics have you found to be most effective?

Haven’t switched over to the new design yet? The following are four reasons why your business should take advantage of LinkedIn’s redesign and enhanced features:

1.  Increased branding initiatives:  Similar to Twitter’s new header photo and the Facebook timeline cover, LinkedIn now offers a large banner image at the top of each company page. This allows organizations to visually brand their pages and capitalize on customer recognition.
2. Live stream constantly updated: A company news stream has been added to the right side of the profile. The stream captures products and services, career opportunities, and the most recent news, at the top in reverse chronological order. This layout allows users to see updates and keeps users connected to current events, most likely increasing their loyalty to the brand. More prominent navigation will increase communication because products, services, and career opportunities are clear.
3. Connected on the go: For LinkedIn, mobile integration has been a long time coming. While other well-known social mediums implemented and improved their mobile capability, LinkedIn, the most recognized professional networking site available, just recently provided mobile applications. Company pages can now be viewed using LinkedIn’s smartphone and iPad apps, making access to company pages more readily available.
4. Pertinent information readily available: With LinkedIn’s new design, organizations can feature important updates and news so readers can easily access it. Updates can remain on top of other news for up to 48 hours, helping companies highlight the most important information while still allowing user to view less-germane news.

Though LinkedIn hasn’t made the update mandatory, the benefits of using these enhancements seem reason enough to make the switch. Not only can companies increase brand awareness, but they are also making themselves more accessible to customers, which will only prove to be valuable in the long run.

SOUND OFF: Love it or leave it? What do you think about LinkedIn’s new design?

The Girl Scout Law

I will do my best to be

honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong,
and  responsible for what I say and do,

and to

respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place,
and  be a sister to every Girl Scout.

So what does this have to do with Requirements Management anyway?  There are times in my projects when I have invested hours in negotiating, documenting and declaring meeting ground rules.  This can be particularly an issue for those large, multi-day, “let’s-all-get-in-a-room-and-come-up-with-solutions” discussions.  I’m thinking for my next one, the Girl Scout Law covers it.

Let’s be real though, most of the time, we already follow these rules in our daily life.  Who doesn’t want to make the world a better place?  I think it is the combination of the qualities, the “and” part , that make me realize these would be good rules to follow in the context of a meeting.

I know what you are thinking,  “But I do follow these rules, honest, really, I’m honest!”  When I evaluate when I’m honest, I’m not sure that I am always honest and fair.  When the discussion becomes tense, I may have strong opinions, and lack the courage to voice them.  Many times I have to find the patience to be considerate and caring when steering the team out of the weeds and back to the topic.  For now, I know my weak areas lie in the “ands,” and so in my next meeting (and every day, if I am really trying to make the world a better place), I will be working on being more responsible for what I say and do.

SOUND OFF:  Are there rules from your past that would help bring clarity to your meetings?  Be friendly and helpful—tell us about them!

Aside from documenting your process according to the guidelines in the previous post, our experience with local processes is very simple and can be boiled down to a few rules.

1. Decide if a process or procedure is really necessary. Really.

The first question you should ask is: Do I need this procedure to “do the right thing” and to show others in the company that we are “doing the right thing?” Generally, if it fills an unaddressed gap in global procedure, mitigates a risk identified at the Project Charter stage, or provides a wrapper for ongoing inventories of exceptions or content, it is worth it. If you are reasonably covered by existing work practices and corporate compliance requirements then think hard about adding another layer of complexity to what you maintain.  Can you be accountable and transparent with what you already have?  The exposure of social media provides much of the transparency on its own.

2. Bullets and outlines beat text.

Make the process simple enough that anyone could build the visual flow of it in their mind within a few minutes of reading it.  Succinct bullets, or better, providing the graphic guidance is preferable to using corporate speak, legalese, or excessive adverbs.  Checklists are preferable for quantitative judgments and decision diagrams are preferable for qualitative judgments.

3. The team owns it.

Ask the team executing the work if it’s worth it.  Ask those who provide compliance guidance if it is required.  Ask the person who will have to maintain it if it is worth it.  Go a step further.  Give the team the goals and ask them to WRITE it and decide where to keep it.  Have them elect the procedure owner. If the team expresses hesitation in being a part of the collaboration, you can expect the same hesitance in complying with the procedure, once established. This rule can be a deal breaker and may require facilitation by the project owner to help frame the need to the team appropriately, so they can get behind the reason for the documentation or working process.

4. Live by it

If you build it, live by it.  If you do a periodic temperature check and realize that the process is no longer useful, change it, replace it or abandon it.  Just document your decision and add it to your best practices and retrospective agenda.  You must also support your process with the right tools.  If your support software, third party applications, or even hardware don’t support the process, you will run into yet another barrier to success.  Go into the process creation process understanding that every process or procedure requires an investment for someone, the team, the owner, the document—er  nearly everyone on the team.

What we found to be worth it…

Here are a few local processes we found worth the time and effort to create and live by, as did our team.

• Pre-qualified Commenters: A process that provides the training and authorization for social media posters to be pre-qualified to speak on behalf of the team
• Developers Launch Checklist: For hosted or administered platforms a checklist to assist in ensuring corporate compliance at launch
• Blogging Style Guide: More a guideline and less a process, this document succinctly summarizes our voice and mission for our bloggers.
• Risk Assessments: We have several locally built risk assessment tools that compile corporate risk factors with those we consider important to acknowledge before a project’s launch. In short, the real and necessary risks are compiled into one or more tools for evaluation.

What you should end up with…

A library of checklists, outlines and diagrams that are easily digestible, stand on their own, and are owned and managed by the team.  If they can’t live without the project manager, they probably shouldn’t live in the first place.

Is that all?

Local processes are the last administrative aspect to “doing the right thing”.  Next time, we’ll talk about touting, the team, and how to build the team behavior that drives unity of vision and of voice.

The header photo, which appears above tweets on a profile, allows individuals to express themselves in a new ways and provide additional branding companies and organizations using Twitter.

Wondering how to make your Twitter header photo say something new about your brand? You may find inspiration in some of these creative Twitter headers.

1. @todayshow
   
   The Today Show uses a collage of images from their show as a header picture for their Twitter account.
2. @RyanSeacrest
   
   On-air personality, Ryan Seacrest blends his profile picture with his Twitter header image.
3. @MariSmith


Social
   
   Media Examiner’s Mari Smith uses her Twitter header to showcase her portfolio.
4. @ducttape
   
   A number of professional speakers—including Duct Tape Marketing author, John Jantsch—use pictures taken during industry-related events as their header pictures.
5. @deltafaucet
   
   Delta Faucet uses their profile picture to demonstrate one of their products in use.
6. @waspbarcode
   
   This company, which specializes in providing solutions for businesses, includes one of their products in their Twitter header photo.
7. @BreakingNews
   
   Breaking News uses a variation of their Twitter background to tie together their Twitter profile picture and background image.
8. @FusionAlliance
   
   Our Twitter header showcases our branding, as well as some of the employees who help make our technology-enabled business solutions possible!

SOUND OFF: Does your organization’s account have a creative Twitter header? Share it with us by leaving a link below. (Don’t forget to share any tips or tricks too!)

After months of ongoing lawsuits between Apple and Samsung regarding their smartphone and tablet designs, the jury returned a verdict largely in favor of Apple, alleging that Samsung had “willfully infringed upon Apple’s design and utility patents, among them the curved rectangular shape of the iPhone.”

Samsung has requested a new trial, arguing that the verdict was not supported by evidence or testimony, that the judge imposed limits on testimony time, and the number of witnesses prevented them from receiving a fair trial. Furthermore, Apple has filed a new lawsuit asking for additional damages and has issued a request to stop all sales of Samsung products that were cited to be in violation of the U.S. patents. The next hearing is December 6th.

Samsung may have lost this round, but they are not giving up the fight. Last year, Samsung started running an ad campaign using the tagline, “The Next Big Thing Is Here,” promoting its 4G service and the Galaxy S II phone.  But just in time for the recent iPhone 5 launch, Samsung updated that campaign, inserting the word “already” into the tagline, comparing features head to head in the print ad—and in the TV spot—poking fun at the iPhone devotees waiting in long lines wondering if they were wasting their time as they watched Samsung users flaunt the features of the Galaxy III. iPhone followers had a field day with the print ads, first “editing” and then tweeting them.

OK, so you get the idea. It’s kind of like two kids fighting over space in the sandbox. But what does this court decision really mean for consumers? If this case becomes precedent, will it serve to promote innovation in technology—or hamper it?  Is it really possible to make a smartphone without infringing on any of Apple’s patents?  Will Apple go after other manufacturers? Samsung may be large enough to survive and continue to flourish despite this attack; however, many smaller manufacturers may not be able to stand up to Apple’s financial strength and market position.

I have an iPhone, as do my two sons, and we are very happy with them. My husband has a Samsung smartphone and is equally satisfied with it. Even though I would never give up my iPhone, I have to admit, the Samsung phone has some great features.  It’s all a matter of preference.

But despite my loyalty and emotional connection to Apple products, I have to disagree with the court’s decision on this one. Take a look:

Apple’s Statement following the verdict:

“We are grateful to the jury for their service and for investing the time to listen to our story and we were thrilled to be able to finally tell it. The mountain of evidence presented during the trial showed that Samsung’s copying went far deeper than even we knew. The lawsuits between Apple and Samsung were about much more than patents or money. They were about values. At Apple, we value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. We make these products to delight our customers, not for our competitors to flagrantly copy. We applaud the court for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right.”

Samsung’s statement following the verdict:

“Today’s verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer. It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices. It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies. Consumers have the right to choices, and they know what they are buying when they purchase Samsung products. This is not the final word in this case or in battles being waged in courts and tribunals around the world, some of which have already rejected many of Apple’s claims. Samsung will continue to innovate and offer choices for the consumer.”

As consumers, we should have the option to choose.  The more competition, the more pressure on manufacturers to innovate. Then WE are the victors. But if Apple v. Samsung is a hint at the direction of the technology industry, as Samsung stated, the real losers will be you and me.

An Apple a day may keep the doctor away—but I just want to know that I can have an orange if I want one. Don’t you?

SOUND OFF: Which side of Apple v. Samsung decision are you on?  Leave a comment to let us know.

One example is Indiana University Health. On Wednesday, June 13, IU Health (@IU_Health) hosted the state of Indiana’s first “Twittercast” of a live surgery. In addition to using Twitter to provide the public a “virtual all-access pass” of a kidney transplant, IU Health created a digital marketing campaign to support this program.

Marketing campaign components included:

• A traditional press release
• Traditional media relations
• Twitter updates including: facts, “play-by-play” commentary, answers to questions, and even pictures
• A designated Twitter hashtag (#CalebsKidney)
• YouTube videos
• A designated page on the IU Health website
• A portal designed to allow individuals to send messages to both the kidney donor and recipient

IU Health’s creative use of social media, as well as their integrated digital marketing strategy provided notable results including:

• 1,363 new Twitter followers
• 1,754 Twitter mentions
• 100 earned media hits
• 1,700 visits to an IU Health webpage about being a kidney donor

SOUND OFF: Is your organization utilizing social media as part of your digital strategy? Have a success story about a creative campaign? Share it with us by leaving a comment below.

Emerging from its reputation as a digital dark art, SEO as a discipline is preparing to go mainstream.  According to an August 2012 survey led by enterprise SEO firm Conductor in conjunction with SearchEngineWatch.com, 63% of respondents said their executives are more familiar with SEO metrics than 12 months ago.  The name of the white paper for which the results were presented?  “Why 2013 Will be the Year of SEO.”  In addition, eMarketer recently cited software company SEOMoz, saying that 57% of online marketers practiced SEO tactics on a daily basis, beating out other digital functions like analytics (54%) and social media (48.1%).

It appears that the internet’s “killer app” remains much the same as it was over a decade ago.  According to The Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project tracking surveys (2002 – 2012), 91% of consumers use search engines, second only to the 92% that use email, both figures far exceeding the 66% of American users that use social media.

Here then, a brief primer on the essentials of SEO as it becomes The Next Big Thing:

What are the Basics of SEO?

Before a search engine can provide results for a user in the form of a relevant page, file or document, the search word(s) must first be discovered by the search engine.  To find information on the millions of web pages that exist, a search engine uses special software called “spiders” or “bots” to build lists of the words it finds on publicly available web sites.  Building the list is called “crawling.”  Once a site has been crawled, it is referenced as having been “indexed,”  meaning it’s available to be part of the search results.

Google’s search bot is called “Googlebot” and was built to index every significant word on a page, leaving out the articles “a,” “an” and “the.”  When the Googlebot is crawling a web page, it takes note of two things, the words within the page and where the words are found.  Words occurring in the title, subtitles, and other positions of relative importance are noted for special consideration.

Other considerations are a part of the search “algorithm,” a proprietary bit of programming and mathematical logic that is designed to find, rank and place web sites in the search engine results page (SERP).  These algorithms are closely held secrets by the search engines (akin to the Colonel’s 11 secret spices) and Google indicates that their search algorithm takes into account over 200 “signals” (the previously mentioned “special considerations”).  One of the known signals is PageRank , a Google-based 1 to 10 ranking of a page’s importance based on the incoming links from other pages/sites.  Each link back to your page adds to your site’s figurative PageRank.

SEO industry insiders indicate that Google’s algorithm changes up to 500 – 600 times a year. While most of these changes are minor, Google frequently rolls out a “major” algorithmic update that affects search results in significant ways (See Google Panda and Penguin updates).

The monitoring, parsing, experimenting and consulting that takes place between SEO providers and their clients are informed guesses that are meant to increase the amount of relevance a web site (and its pages) has against those proprietary signals.

Why all the fuss, you ask?  85% of qualified web traffic is driven through search engines and search is the number one driver of traffic to content sites.  Google alone accounts for 12.2 billion monthly searches in the U.S. and commands 86% of all search volume .  Research indicates that a web site showing up on the first page of Google search results (especially in one of the top three organic positions) is critical, as these spots receive 58.4% of all clicks from users.  75% of search engine users never scroll past the first page of results.

Simply put, ranking highly in search engines can be the difference between recognition and obscurity for a person or business.

What’s the Difference between SEO and Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

SEO and SEM are two sides of the same coin.  Whereas SEO is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s “natural” or “organic” or search results, SEM expands that notion to include paid search tactics such as Pay-Per-Click.

What’s the difference between on-page and off-site SEO?

On-page SEO is all of the things that can be done to a web site to optimize it for SEO best practices, like the construction and proper technical maintenance of the site and ensuring the site content properly represents keywords that match to the search query intent in Google, Yahoo and Bing.  Google provides guidance on many of these items with Google Webmaster Tools and the more basic SEO Guidance. 

Off-site SEO includes factors related to PageRank, like getting one-way back links to your website from other quality web sites that use relevant keywords in the anchor text of the link.  This helps search engines know what your site is about and to assess its relevance and authority for those keywords.

Explain to me again how Pay-Per-Click (PPC) relates to all of this?

Ranking on page one in the Google search results for a keyword is difficult.  The amount of web sites published has grown from an estimated 3 million in 2002 to 555 million in 2012.  Pay-per-click (PPC) is a viable means for an advertiser to tout their web site on the first page of Google search results for a search query, even if their site doesn’t rank nearly as high for that same keyword or search query.  Again, the combination of search engine optimization for a site along with utilizing PPC is considered Search Engine Marketing.

Summary

Search engine optimization can be unwieldy, made worse by people who will extol its complexities instead of distilling it to its essence.  The core attributes are a technically sound web site with content that is frequently updated, relevant and valuable to your audience, and also monitoring the analytics on your site so you can understand where ongoing adjustments are necessary.

Chances are good that an executive is going to ask you about SEO in the near future and when she does, you can now confidently talk through the basics.  Feel free to call Fusion if you need additional support.

The following six quotes—gathered by The Economist—are from well-know individuals dealing with the concept of great ideas, originality, and innovation:

1.  Great Ideas Often Take Some Convincing
   Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats.” Howard Aiken, computer scientist, quoted in Portraits in Silicon by Robert Slater (1989)
2. Innovation is Not Always Welcomed
   “Large corporations welcome innovation and individualism in the same way the dinosaurs welcomed large meteors.” Dilbert comic strip
3.  Focus on What You Believe is Most Important
   “Innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem. It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea. And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.” Steve Jobs, founder of Apple (1955–2011), quoted in BusinessWeek, May 1998
4.  Don’t Be Limited By What Currently Exists
   “The public does not know what is possible. We do.” Akio Morita, co-founder of Sony (1921–99)
5.  You Can’t Make Improvements if You Never Look for Problems
   “If it ain’t broke, break it.” Richard Pascale, academic (1938–), Managing on the Edge (1990)
6.  Innovation Sometimes Means Redefining the Rules
   “If you can, be first. If you can’t be first, create a new category in which you can be first.” Al Ries and Jack Trout, The 22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing (1994)

Sound Off: What’s your favorite quote about innovation and how does it inspire you? Share it with us by leaving a comment below.

Here are some tips to remember and incorporate if your company functions based on teamwork and collaborative efforts:

• Take a personality test to help you understand yourself and others better. There are several personality tests available online that can help break down specific traits of your personality and describe how you can harness those traits to properly communicate with others. For example, the Myers Briggs test, is deployed all over the country from universities to businesses, and helps test-takers understand personality preferences by identifying four areas: introvert/extrovert determines how you are energized, sensor/intuitive measures how you absorb information, thinker/feeler analyzes if you make decisions with your head or your heart, and judgmental/perceptive describes how you order you life. Once you understand more about yourself, you can better interact with others and potentially cater to their needs, as well.

• Be willing to attend conferences, webinars and seminars. Taking classes and going out of your way to read additional material about your industry will make you a well-rounded individual. While it may seem like a self-fulfilling task, broadening your skills and expertise will also make you a better asset to your team. Not only will you be knowledgeable about current trends, you will be able to bring ideas to the table during team conversations and brainstorming sessions. Bouncing ideas off one-another during meetings can help the problem-solving process, and by taking the initiative to learn more, you’re helping your team and your business.

• Take advantage of team building events. So you may not be asked to take a day at the high-ropes course with your team, but try to bring the high-ropes back to the office. Participate in team building skills that ensure trust and communication. For example, play red, yellow and green light during brainstorming events. It goes like this: during the green light, everyone shares his or her thoughts and ideas on how to solve the problem freely. There is no insulting or erasing of “bad” ideas. All thoughts are written on the board and accepted as great contributions. Yellow light is the time you can discuss the items on the board, talking about why the thought may or may not work, with out giving insult. And red light is where you really discover what the team perceives to the best solution. This team building activity will facilitate free thought, a safe environment, and an opportunity for people to build on one another’s ideas.

Sound Off: Working as a team can help produce more effective solutions. What tips do you have for fostering creativity through teamwork? Share  your success story by leaving a comment below.

1. Smartphones. According to an infographic by ClickFox, approximately 75% of customers have used a mobile app to make a purchase or help in their buying decision. This statistic is not surprising since many apps now allow customers to find businesses according to location or goods sold, compare prices, receive deals and coupons, participate in contests in real-time, and purchase desired products all through the use of one’s smartphone.
2. Price Comparing Apps. During the current economic climate, customers want to be savvy, and therefore conduct thorough research before making a final buying decision. New apps allow customers to compare prices across several distributors; find coupons, whether through manufacturer discounts or other mediums such as Foursquare; and share what they’re browsing with friends.
3. Product Recommendations. Businesses are implementing product recommendation software on their sites to help cater to their customers’ shopping experiences. As products and services are chosen, the software generates content and product recommendations other users deemed helpful. Not only can a business generate more sales by providing like-products, they can also enhance the user-experience by supplying as much relevant information as possible.
4. Social Media Platforms. According to a recent infographic posted by Search Engine Journal, people spend 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook alone. In an effort to reach out to their customers, businesses are engaging on various platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. This helps them monitor where their customers are coming from, how they shop, what they are buying and when they make purchases. In turn, customers are given incentives to interact such as businesses offer coupons, free giveaways for contest winners and immediate customer service assistance.
5. Barcode and QR Code Scanners. Businesses are utilizing barcodes and QR codes to supply information regarding coupons, daily deals and company material in a small, yet quickly obtainable view. Upon scanning the image, the customer will be promptly diverted to cost-saving opportunities or the company’s website. Customers and businesses are finding this useful, since customers can quickly access important information with a swift scan of their phone.
6. GPS. Though GPS has been around for some time, the software continues to advance in the way it helps businesses and customers connect with each other. GPS devices, both stand-alone and on a smartphone, now suggest local businesses around the area in which a person is traveling. Additionally, businesses are asking permission to use the global positioning system in their customers’ phones, so when someone is near their establishment, they can offer coupons and discounts, hoping that the close proximity and the reinforced offers will persuade customers to pay them a visit.

SOUND OFF: What are some technological innovations you believe have helped customers and businesses connect?

But consider some of the recent compelling facts: By 2015, there will be nearly one mobile device for every person on the earth. Many people will have more than one mobile device. Enterprise tablet adoption will grow nearly 50% per year for the next four years, so that second device will likely be a tablet.

Still, the pervasiveness of smartphones increases: from 31% to 44% in the U.S. last year, and from 30% to 51% in the U.K. With that kind of ubiquity, new classes of applications that interact directly with a customer’s environment can be created. This will bring new opportunities to connect with and market to customers.

Perhaps this is the year after all.

Since it was introduced last year, Apple’s Siri has helped drive sales of the iPhone 4S. Siri took advantage of a smartphone opportunity—readily available fast mobile Internet—to address a smartphone weakness—tiny screens and imprecise keyboards.

Although Siri’s similarities to a sci-fi robot may make this technology seem futuristic, Siri is really a good example of how existing mobile technology is evolving. So, when it comes to mobile, what’s the next wave? As it turns out, it might be sound.

Sound: The Future of Mobile Marketing?

New technology by companies like Chirp and Sonic Notify are using sound waves to transfer information.

Close your eyes and imagine the sound of your favorite coffee shop. Does it vary from the sound of your office or your favorite TV show? Sonic Notify is new technology that uses the sounds of a mobile user’s surroundings to bring that user relevant media. In other words, Sonic Notify uses sound to distinguish where you are or what you’re listening to. Using in this technology in an app, companies can trigger notifications on their mobile phone at precise times or in specific locations.

Mobile app, Chirp turns data into a sound—a “chirp,” if you will—that can be broadcast. People within the range of the sound who are running the Chip app on their phone can then “hear” and interpret the data. This technology allows anything that makes a sound—from doorbells and car horns to TV and radio commercials—to broadcast a message to mobile phones that are running the app.

Much like Siri, these innovations provide a creative approach to solving the problem of small screens and “fat-fingering” keyboards. Unlike visuals, which often must be altered to accommodate a small smartphone screen, phones were built for transferring sound. Sound and phones might seem like a logical pairing, but is sound the next trend in mobile innovation? We’ll have to wait and hear.

SOUND OFF: How do you think sound will influence the future of mobile? Leave a comment below to share your thoughts.

As a digital project manager, it’s my responsibility to shepherd the team’s thinking and expertise,  and pull together and drive the processes that will bring projects to successful completion. While there are lots of processes when it comes to digital, there is no “one size fits all” approach. There are more variables than ever. Clients’ issues and needs are highly individualized and there are always new and potentially better ways to address them.

Everything digital is complex and interrelated.  For example, you may come to us to update the look and feel of your website.  We will ask any or all, but not limited to the following questions:

• May we see your branding style guide and your other marketing materials?
• May we speak to your salespeople, R&D and IT folks?
• May we have access to your Google Analytics account?
• Who currently updates or maintains your site and how they do it?

You may come to us for search engine optimization, and we may recommend some overall design changes. Or, you may want us to implement a particular content management system, however, after talking to your stakeholders, we may recommend against that one in favor of doing a formal CMS evaluation to determine which is the best for your organization in the long run.

I feel you nodding your heads and thinking “Typical. I came in for a routine check-up and they want to give me a chest x-ray, an EKG and a bone scan.” Of course we want to “do it all!” But think of it this way:  we want to help you address your overarching business challenges related to digital, so we always look at things holistically.

I also hear you saying, “But I can’t afford to do all that!”  We understand. Part of our creative problem-solving process is to help you prioritize and phase your projects in a way that will always keep you moving toward your goals.

Digital is never “once and done.” That’s why we use a Solution Realization Model that allows us to approach challenges with the right balance of process and ingenuity. It’s more than designing, building or implementing. We can help you imagine it, improve it and grow it. Our experience enables us to use the known to figure out the unknown.

We’re in it for you for the long term. Are you with us?

If you wouldn’t accept these scenarios in your offline experience—why should you, or your customers—accept it within an email campaign? It is estimated that the average corporate email user receive 112 email messages in a given day. So, the challenge for email marketers is to stand out in the crowd, avoid the cringe, the eye-rolls and attempt not to be deleted. Here are five tips that might help improve your email campaigns:

1. Know your audience – Segment your email lists, and talk to recipients appropriately. Don’t expect to have the same dialog with a potential customer as a long-standing loyal customer.
2. Identify Yourself – Email recipients are going to scan the subject line and reply address to decide whether to read or delete your message. Make the subject line compelling and consider personalization that gets the recipient’s attention. Don’t overlook who is sending the email on your behalf. If your reply address is impersonal, you entire message will be treated as such. For example,  customer_servicerep_no227@company.com is not as warm as joe_smith@company.com.
3. Keep It Simple – Don’t clobber your email recipients with too much information. A short message with clear call-to-action and links to external sites is more easily processed by readers, and provides opportunities to track engagement and activity.
4. Embrace the Dissenters – Not all content or campaigns are fit for all recipients. Make sure you provide email recipients a chance to manage themselves by adjusting email frequency, content subscriptions, or personal data that might be used to refine messages to them.
5. Refine Your Message – Every email campaign is an opportunity to understand what subject lines improve opens, what content leads to more opens or shares, and what links provide more traffic or conversions to your site. Most modern email service providers (ESPs) provide this data within your account. Use this data to inform your campaigns and respond to customer engagement.

SOUND OFF: What have you done that has improved the performance of your email campaigns? Have questions about email or anything digital?  Join us for our #OptionPass hashtag chat, Wednesday, September 19th from Noon to 1EST. Learn more.

Of course you have! (Haven’t we all?)

Although these questions are common, the answers can be as varied as businesses themselves. However, just because there isn’t a cookie-cutter, one-fits-all solution for capitalizing on opportunity and addressing business needs, a clear, systematic approach can help ensure that a quality solution is delivered.

Our Solution Realization Model 

When it comes to delivering quality technology solutions and services, we here’s the model that we use:

1. Listen and Learn – We listen, learn, ask questions, and listen some more. These conversations are further supported by trend data, market research, situations analysis, customer insights and project factors.
2. Strategic Mapping – Next, we work to understand and quantify the full nature of the opportunity and explore a variety of strategic approaches and creative solutions given these considerations.
3. Tailoring the Approach – Sometimes, 100% application of our process is warranted. Other times, our process is selectively applied to fit the specific needs of the project and maturity of the organization.
4. Fusion Catalyst – We develop quality assurance framework adapted to the individual client’s unique principles and practices and specific business environment.
5. Value Creation – We assess the business impact of implementing the new solution.
6. Continuous Improvement – Part of our Solutions Realizations Model is regularly reviewing our solutions delivery and staff performance to determine where we can continue to strive for excellence.

Interested in learning more about our approach to solutions delivery? Make sure to check out our full Solution Realization Model or contact us to find out how it can be applied to your business.

So when you’re faced with a problem, where do you start? The following are six practical problem-solving tips to point you in the right direction:

1. Recognize the Problem
   It sounds basic, but understanding the problem you need to solve and separating that from related circumstances will help you to focus your efforts.
2. Decide You Want to Work with this Problem
   Problem solving requires time and energy. Feeling confident that you can and will solve the problem will help you be better prepared to tackle it head on.
3. Make a Plan, Then Implement It
   Set goals, prioritize and be organized. Yes, chances are your strategy will change, but laying out a roadmap will help make sure your efforts, and those of your team, are working in sync.
4. Analyze the Problem from Different Viewpoints
   To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Oftentimes solving a problem requires looking at it from a new perspective.
5. Analyze Your Resources
   How much time, money and energy will it take to reach your goal? Do you have the skills and knowledge needed to address the problem? Understanding what resources you have at your disposal will help you be better equipped to capitalize on opportunity.
6. Evaluate Your Progress
   Regularly record your results. Make sure to take notes about what should be removed, added or adjusted. This will help you better understand the problem and create a foundation for any similar problems you encounter in the future.

Need help with your problem solving strategy? Contact us to learn more about our solution realizations model and how we can help develop a technology-enabled business solution that fits your organization.

Responsible for developing requirements management strategy, process and plan, eliciting and documenting system requirements, driving issues and change management, participating in software testing support, end-user training, and deployment.

My short form of this is:

Responsible for translating from Human to Geek and then Geek back to Human.

Ultimately, at the core of what we do is to help our projects solve problems. What makes our role different than say an architect or developer is that we don’t usually do that in a “ta-da-here-is-your-solution” way. We listen. We observe. We facilitate. We restate. We organize. We ask questions—the obvious ones that everyone else is afraid to ask. We draw the conversation out of the team so we can all problem solve collectively and creatively.

So what does this have to do with requirements management anyway?  As we all know, the work that goes into what becomes a recorded software requirement is more than simply listening and typing. The reason I use the word “artifact” when I talk about requirements is because what we produce is the result of a process. (No, it isn’t an “artifact”  because it is an object that will be later unearthed and speculated about as to its true value.) The process is what counts. If the process isn’t good, the artifact certainly won’t be. One of the things I appreciate most about Fusion’s flexible Quality Management System is that we give our projects the opportunity to innovate and apply ingenuity, not just in the delivered solution but also in the planning process. Planning your requirements management effort involves understanding the problems you are trying to solve, and allowing the planning team to use creativity and collaboration will give the project the boost it needs to get to solutions.

Let’s be real though—we all have worked with project team members who want to do things “the-way-they-always-do-it”. My advice—pull them into the requirements management planning process.  Seek to understand what is it about “the-way-they-always-do-it” that helps them get their jobs done.  Really, isn’t this just another problem to solve, another opportunity to collaborate and innovate on a solution?

I know what you’re thinking: “But you still haven’t answered your daughter’s question!”  I was getting to that. If you are a regular Nick Jr. viewer, these song lyrics should sound familiar: “There’s no problem we can’t solve, when we put our heads together and get involved.” See, if I just put it in the same context as Kiki, Marina, Twist and Shout, she’ll get it:  “Just like The Fresh Beat Band, Mommy works with people to help them solve problems.”

SOUND OFF:  Do you have an innovation in requirements management that you want to share?  We’d love to hear how creativity and collaboration in requirements management has had an impact on your projects.

Your team’s players make or break your fantasy team, just as they do in the NFL. Think about it: what do people pay to see when they go to an NFL football game? No matter how enthusiastically the cheerleaders cheer or how splendid the half-time entertainment is, people pay to see a winning team. The same is true of your website content. No matter how user-friendly, mobile-ready, aesthetically pleasing, and intuitively navigable your site is, people visit and revisit your site because of its content. So let’s look at how winning fantasy football strategies and content strategies are similar.

Draft winning players and content

If you’ve ever seriously played in a fantasy football team, you know that some amount of research is involved in ranking and selecting your players prior to the league draft. When it’s your turn to pick, you obviously want to select the available player who you believe, based on your pre-draft research, has the best potential to score significant points. You wouldn’t waste a high draft pick on a player with low projected fantasy points, and you definitely would avoid a player who’s on injured reserve.

Your website content, both existing and proposed, should be researched, evaluated, and drafted the same way. Do you know who your users are? What are competitors doing on their websites? Do you know what the content for a page or section is supposed to accomplish? Does the content score points with your target audience by being accurate, useful, clear, concise, and current? Is your content SEO optimized so that potential users can even find it? You have little time to engage your audience, just as you’re “on the clock” when making your fantasy pick. Don’t waste a “draft pick” on content that doesn’t serve your users. For example, how many people in your target audience really come to your site to read your mission statement?

Fine tune your roster

When the dust settles after the league draft, you look at your roster with a critical eye. What were you thinking when you drafted that oft-injured quarterback? (Never again, Michael Vick.) If you had a hosting service autodraft for you based on your rankings, what convoluted algorithm selected a kicker in the fifth round? Time to propose a trade or look to the waiver wire to see which players are available to fill in the gaps and improve your team’s chances.

Make similar tweaks to your content roster. If your analytics are telling you that people aren’t visiting a particular page of your site despite a clear navigation path, or that a page has a high bounce rate, then fine tune the content to provide value for your user or eliminate it altogether. Every piece of content on your site, just like every player on your fantasy team, should serve a specific purpose.

Manage, manage, manage

Drafting and tweaking are just the start. The long-term key to success in both fantasy football and content strategy is governance. Waiting until just before the first weekly game to adjust your fantasy football lineup can lead to unpleasant consequences, such as noticing that both your quarterback and backup quarterback have bye weeks, or that a star receiver who was questionable earlier in the week has been downgraded to doubtful. Team managers who finish at the top of their fantasy league—or who win it—don’t neglect their teams until just before the weekly kickoff. They proactively scan the waiver wire for players who will improve their team; they pay attention to promising players such as rookies overlooked in the league draft. In short, they effectively govern their teams.

In The Elements of Content Strategy, Erin Kissane puts it simply: “Publish no content without a support plan.” Too often in the rush of getting content “out there,” nobody plans for its long-term sustainability. Effective governance keeps web content accurate, on-brand, on-message, and useful to users. Tactically, that means clearly defining and documenting roles and responsibilities, content workflows, information and messaging architecture, SEO guidelines, taxonomy and metadata guidelines, style guidelines, and editorial calendars—and managing to make sure all of these things happen. Effectively managed web content meets business and user goals, which is a winning strategy.

So there you have it. Winning in web content and fantasy football begins with drafting, improves through refinement, and is truly successful only when effectively governed. At Fusion Alliance, our content strategists can help you achieve your business and user goals with a winning content strategy. And I personally wish you much success in fantasy football—unless you’re in my league.

SOUND OFF: What strategies and tactics have you used to “win” the content game? Or your fantasy football league? I’m always looking for a new angle.

Doug Scamahorn is an experience architect who has worked with clients in both the finance and healthcare industry.

Jan Evans is a project manager and content strategist who has worked with clients in the medical industry. Her work in regulated industries primarily deals with medical devices.

Here’s what they had to say about their work in regulated industry:

What kind of solutions does Fusion Alliance provide for organizations operating in regulated industries?

Doug: Digital strategy, UX design, visual design, social media implementation, user testing, web apps, mobile app design.

Jan: Product websites, disease state education websites, sales training websites, customer service website, intranet.

What special preparations did you make to ensure success for projects within regulated industries?

Doug: [We made sure that we had an] awareness of the questions to ask in order to identify each company’s risk tolerance and their capabilities for handling negative events.

Jan: [For my projects, I made sure that we] gained understanding of product claims; understanding of privacy, legal and compliance processes and procedures; and of the content/copy review process.

How do you stay up-to-date on regulations and restrictions?

Doug: I follow blogs focused on the healthcare industry [as well as,] FDA rules and regulations.

Jan: [In past projects, I] developed relationships with the folks inside the organization who were responsible for enforcing them [and] utilized internal systems to refer to documentation.

There’s a lot of talk about the challenges of using social media in regulated industries, how else do industry regulations impact digital marketing?

Doug: [Regulated industries impact marketing,] content and interactions. You must communicate in a way that is persuasive, yet the content cannot be construed as off-label OR outside the indications.  Interaction with visitors to a digital experience has to be controlled depending on the level of comfort and ability to monitor adverse events.  If the organization cannot handle this reporting then an experience is locked down.

SOUND OFF: Does your organization operate within a regulated industry? What kind of challenges have you experienced when attempting to implement technology solutions?

As we’ve discussed, though, financial institutions have strict regulations—especially when it comes to digital services. Between privacy and security issues, complying with customer demands has been quite the maze to navigate.

Brian Tetrick, director of Athena Privacy, LLC, laid out the primary concerns, saying:

“Security of the mobile platform, security of the applications and privacy are the top three concerns surrounding mobile. Second to privacy is malware—malware that is specifically designed to target mobile banking apps and platforms.”

In May, Bank Info Security (BITS) issued a list of recommended guidelines for mobile security. These guidelines addressed the top mobile risks compiled from a poll of mobile experts. They include:

• Rapid growth
• Need for new security controls
• More players, more risks
• Privacy issues
• Role of consumers
• Anticipating risk

It’s clear that banking institutions are taking this seriously—and determining how mobile banking differs from its online counterpart. This is important, because according to the Federal Reserve, 60% of new customers said mobile banking influenced their decision on where to do business—and 11% said they use their phone’s camera to make remote deposits.

SOUND OFF: How important do you think it is for regulated industries to penetrate the mobile market?

However, last April, Facebook took a huge step in combining the two (social media and the regulated medical industry) by launching the Organ Donor Initiative.

Organ Donation on Facebook

With more that 114,000 people (in the U.S.) waiting for an organ transplant, Facebook saw an opportunity to bring attention to a critical issue in today’s society. The program allows Facebook users to add the fact that they’ve chosen to be an organ donor to their Facebook Timeline. However, Facebook doesn’t take the initiative lightly—as you add that you’re an organ donor to your Timeline, Facebook offers a link to where you can officially register in your state.

What are lawmakers saying?

Legislative officials appreciate the initiative, and expressed that appreciation via Congress’ Facebook Page. Representative Mary Bono Mack (R – Calif.) pointed to how Facebook is staying within regulations:
“Facebook is making certain that users have control over who views this information, or they can simply choose not to post any information at all. These are important privacy safeguards. I commend Facebook for undertaking this important new public service campaign and for doing it in such a responsible way.”

Representative Phil Gengry (R-Ga.) had this to say:
“As a physician for more than 30 years, it’s inspiring to see Facebook using its global influence to raise awareness of a critical health issue that impacts more than 114,000 people in the U.S. alone. Social media has the power to impact communities in incredible ways, and I’m hopeful that this initiative will result in broader knowledge of the organ donation crisis.”

What does this mean for regulated industries and social media?

While there aren’t any statistics to prove that this has affected the use of social media in regulated industries, it is a step in the right direction. A spokesperson from the Department of Health and Human Services, which regulates organ donation, said that while not directly involved, the agency supports Facebook’s initiative. “This is the start of a conversation,” said spokesperson David Bowman.

SOUND OFF: Have you participated in Facebook’s initiative? Do you think initiatives like these are a step in the right directions for regulated industries who want to embrace social media?

So what does this have to do with requirements management, exactly? I will say that because of the rigor, structure and deep dive required in regulated environments I have new appreciation for requirements management topics related to performance, security and privacy—topics I used to run away from.

For example, the old me:

• Performance? Isn’t that more of an infrastructure and software testing issue?
• Security? Um, yeah, what were you planning to do anyway?
• Privacy? Huh? Walk away from your desk if you don’t want us to hear your phone calls – oh you mean, privacy of data in the system! Oh, yeah, we should think about that.

Performance, Privacy and security are now some of my new favorite topics on all of my projects. The new me:

• Performance: Who is managing the performance testing effort and when do they start on the performance testing strategy? Let’s get a meeting on the calendar to discuss the thresholds we need them to test and stress.
• Security: Where are we on identifying security threats created by this system? Do we expect system features to be restricted to certain users? Have we identified authentication and authorization requirements?
• Privacy: Hey architects, what are your plans for protecting personally identifiable information? In transit and at rest? Is there a standard in this organization? Are you held to a regulatory standard?

Let’s be real though, these topics make people nervous. Privacy and security seem to be facing new regulations on a daily basis – try discussing using “the cloud” and personally identifiable information in a global solution – throw in electronic health records and payment solutions and now you have yourself a party! My favorite of these topics has to be performance. While these also make people nervous, maturity in performance testing services has made this conversation more collaborative than ever.

I know what you are thinking. “But these non-functional things are always thought about at the end of the project, when I have already moved onto to another project!” That’s usually because we don’t ask about them early enough. My experience tells me that the earlier you ask the question whether it is performance, security or privacy, the earlier you can plan for it. By encouraging discussion of these areas early in the project, we can have a true impact on their success.

SOUND OFF: Do you have experience working with performance, security and privacy requirements in a regulated environment? We’d love to hear how you address them in your process.

Should or shouldn’t we implement social media marketing?

Although it can be difficult to toe the line in regulated industries (especially in the pharmaceutical industry) when it comes to social media, there are both arguments for and against using social media. Here are a few of them:

“Companies that are using fear of regulations or lack of guidance as an excuse to sit on the social media sidelines are missing out on important opportunities to enhance their online presence and connect with their customers.” – Dave Folkens, Top Rank

In his article titled, Why Social Media is a Must in Pharma Marketing, Folkens discusses how fear shouldn’t be a driving factor in your business—and likewise shouldn’t keep you away from social media. He gives a list of things to consider as pharma companies set up social media campaigns.

“…because the agency [the FDA] still has not provided guidance on how to strike a fair balance between a drug’s risks and benefits in social media advertising, pharmaceutical companies have been cautious with their approach to social media.” – Kassity Liu, JOLT Digest

Without clear, concrete guidelines from the FDA, it’s hard for many pharmaceutical companies to navigate the social media world. This article, FDA and Social Media: The Impact of Social Media on Prescription Drug Advertising, reviews those limitations.

“Public, interactive, real-time social media platforms and commercial pharma communications simply don’t mesh well. At all.” –Ed Silverman, Pharmalot

Silverman believes that pharma and social simply don’t mix. He likens it to a marriage counseling session: “So can pharma and social media get along, or would a marriage counselor declare, ‘irreconcilable differences’?”

“When big pharma leverages technology, open data and social media to develop innovative patient-facing apps, it’s a win to the fourth power (i.e., a win-win-win-win).” –Rosina Samadani, President and Founder of Truth on Call and Capella Advisors 

During the Health Care Innovations Summit in January, Samadani saw first-hand how big pharma is using social media (and other new technologies) to benefit patients. “That’s the great thing about pharma getting it,” she said, “We all benefit.”

SOUND OFF: In the age of instant communication, does it make sense for even regulated industries (like pharma) to steer clear of social media? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Today we’ve compiled 10 articles about how businesses in regulated industries have built social media plans, carried them out—and yes—found success via social media.

Finding Social Media Success in Regulated Industries like Banking and Healthcare – Business Grow

According to author Mark Schaefter, “Social networking is not about B2B or B2C marketing.  It’s P2P — person to person.”

Protect Your Clients: Social-Media Tips for the Heavily Regulated – Ad Age

Explore the two most critical steps to take in order to reduce the risks associated with social media activities in regulated industries.

Search Marketing and Social Media in Regulated Industries – Search Engine Watch

The experts at Search Engine Watch give examples of ways companies in regulated industries can stay compliant with regulations and guidelines.

Social Media Success Story: Marketing a Medical Practice – Business Grow

Learn how the marketing manager of a cosmetic medical practice navigated her way through social media in a highly regulated industry.

8 Ways to Beat Social Media Skepticism in Regulated Industries – Justin Case You Were Wondering

PR Pro Justin Goldsborough provides an in-depth recap of a 2011 BlogWorld presentation about social media in regulated industries. He includes quotes and tips from Citibank, Royal Bank of Canada, and HR Block executives about how to cut through that red tape.

The Right Thing to Do, Part 1: Planning Social Media Governance in Regulated Industries – Fusion Alliance

In the first of a multi-blog series, Project Manager Summer Fabian identifies the critical ingredients of a successful social media governance model. In Part 2, she discusses the best type of framework for a regulated social media plan.

Social Media “Likes” Healthcare: From Marketing to Social Business – PWC

In this article, PWC provides an interactive graphic illustrating how different consumers use social media for healthcare-related issues.

Social Media in Health Care Create Risks, Benefits – SFGate

Walk through obstetrician-gynecologist Jen Gunter’s use of social media—and get insight into how she remains compliant and successful.

How Social Media and Millennials Impact the Alcohol Industry – Business to Community

Author Christina Sirabian discusses how major social networks like Facebook and Twitter are making it easier for regulated industries—like the alcohol industry—to appropriately use social media.

Raymond James Gets Social Media Right – The Wall Street Journal

From the article: “It sounds as if Raymond James and Actiance have struck the perfect balance between compliance and social–which are naturally at odds with each other. It seems to provide PR-approved and crowdsourced content for those less experienced with social media while at the same time providing flexibility for those more comfortable with social media platforms. ”

Here at Fusion Alliance, we have experience in regulated industries and understand the challenges these businesses face each day. So as you dive into social media for your business, don’t feel that you need to go it alone. Find advice, tips, and inspiration from those businesses paving the way for you.

SOUND OFF: Do you have an article about social media in regulated industries to add to this list?

First, Know Thyself: Expectations are everything.

Before we discuss some artifacts and practices that I’ve found valuable with other clients, I must make a disclaimer. Step One in building your documentation is to know what your company and industry requires. I probably won’t be of much help to you there. What I can give you is this advice: do an analysis before you jump in.

1. Find all the procedures and processes that are applicable to your situation.  Don’t know them?  Find the people who do (see my previous post).
2. Read the procedures and requirements.
3. Be mindful of what is required versus what is given as a recommendation.
4. Vet the expectations with your stakeholders and project owner.
   • Ensure they understand the required deliverables and artifacts
   • Build a quick RACI so they can understand the resource impact of the internal requirements.
   • Show them where these deliverables and artifacts will live, either in company established locations or a local location that will be accessed by colleagues outside your team.
5. Make a high level plan for getting it all done.  Show what has to come first, what can happen in parallel, etc.

That, of course, is an oversimplification of the process. Every company is different and two days spent in analysis and getting your stakeholders and project owner on board will go a long way to repeat success with social media projects.

Now that  I have had the chance to pass on what I consider the value in this post, how you can prove that social media can be compliant, accountable and transparent? Going above and beyond the company required documentation may be as simple as reframing one of their deliverables in a more valuable way, combining other requirements, etc. Here are some constructs I’ve found valuable in regulated industries to support launch, maintenance, and project closure.

Launch Documentation: The point is, after all, to get launched.

Build a Charter!  It should include:

• The purpose of the project – what you are doing and why you are doing it
• The tools you are using – include the platform itself as well as any add-ons, apps or third party functionality
• A team roster, with names, roles and role descriptions
• How you will measure success – be explicit about your goals, how they will be measured and to whom they will be reported
• A specific review period for the project and where review records will be held

A charter goes beyond compliance and can also be an effective way to introduce your project to the people you need to get your project launched. Sell it! Be high level for executive eyes but be explicit in covering the compliance hot spots for your industry.

Record Consensus!

Approach friendly faces in the appropriate departments (e.g. your Compliance Review Committee) and get their feedback or approval on the Terms of Use and Privacy statements for the platforms and tools you intend to use. Record the approval! If you followed any of the advice in the People installment you aren’t in this alone and the documentation should reflect that.

Content is King – Manage it with a Content Management Strategy

User generated content is possibly the hottest area in regulated industries. Be proactive—show how you will manage user generated content with a content management strategy. A simple flowchart clarifies what types of content should trigger what types of interactions. Share the strategy with those who manage regulatory compliance within your organization and get their buy-in. Record it! In general, a content management strategy should answer these questions:

• What kind of content requires additional action?
• Who is monitoring for that kind of submission?
• How frequently are they monitoring?
• What action will be taken?
  • Be clear about who, when and how.
  • Describe the content management tools and their capabilities within the chosen platform.  Do you have the ability to remove a user’s post, for example?
  • How will the action be escalated, if necessary, to the appropriate organizations within your company?
  • How will your team or the company respond?  Will they respond?

Maintenance Documentation: Be ready with an answer, any time.

Keep an Inventory

Build a simple inventory where all your social projects are stored. A best practice is to have a high-level chart with columns for each necessary artifact and a link to that artifact. Don’t make your reviewers and team scroll through endless pages of documentation to find what they need to be transparent and accountable.

Track Exceptions—anything out of ordinary expectation or operation

• Keep track of any content issues that are raised via your content management strategy and how they were resolved
• Keep track of any guest content creators
• Keep track of any service interruptions and how they were resolved

Track Success!

Keep an inventory of your goals and measures and periodically record the results. Also keep track of any cross-platform conversions. Show, for example, how many of your Facebook followers came from your Twitter Stream. Or, how a Four Square check-in drove a user to the company website. Social media is a living system and just one part of your digital presence.

Record your Local Procedures

I’ll discuss recommendations for local procedures in my next post. All procedures should be recorded along with their effective dates, review periods, and the body of the procedure.

Closing Documentation: Sometimes you have to say goodbye.

Create a Retirement Plan

Regulated industries have project closing procedures to rival any project launch. It is important to understand where the information is going, how it is stored, and how that affects your users and their privacy. Having this plan in place Before you launch exhibits vigilance.

• First understand your company’s requirements and adhere to those. See Step One.
• Describe how the platform and tools being used handle closing a profile, account, or presence.
• Describe where the content will go and where it will be stored.
• Lay out the communication process you intend to use with your users. Will you give them 15 days notice for example? Or, will users be notified after the fact?

Just Do It: and Move On

Documentation isn’t thrilling and is often associated with waste and tedium. By taking the time to analyze the true expectations and the course of action for your project you can turn documentation into a powerful tool for getting stakeholders on board, gaining a reputation for vigilance, and communicating the continuous value your social media project brings to your company.

Next , I’ll explore areas where you may want to institute a local process andshare a few processes that have worked well for me.

What they all had in common are projects that consistently ran over budget, deliverables that did not meet customers’ expectations, and timelines that missed due dates. Employee turnover was high, morale was low, and relationships were deteriorating between departments.

Sound familiar?

Each organization was introduced to industry-leading process frameworks and methodologies to use when improving their workflows and environments. The following is a short list of the frameworks and methodologies our three clients utilized to differing degrees. Future posts will expand on each of these, how they interrelate, and the organizational challenges that need to be overcome during implementation. I will also review specific examples about the benefits and pitfalls our clients experienced.

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

ITIL is a set of best practices that an IT organization can implement to align their activities to those of the business. ITIL 2011 has five core volumes of information, which include processes and activities in strategy, design, operation, continuous improvement, and transition (the development, purchase, and implementation of technology). ITIL does not provide specific roadmaps toward implementation, how to measure improvement, nor guidance on what should be implemented.

Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF)

MOF is very similar to ITIL. It is a library of best practices that Microsoft provides as a free download. The latest base edition was provided in 2008 and is regularly updated to provide best practices for the implementation and maintenance of new paradigms such as cloud computing. MOF is technology agnostic and is not designed as a set of marketing materials for Microsoft’s tools.

Control Objectives for Information Technology (CobIT)

CobIT is the leading framework to measure the maturity of an organization’s processes by comparing the amount a process is institutionalized versus what best practice suggests. This measurement can then be used as a gap analysis or roadmap toward process improvement. CobIT is considered to be the “what to implement” to ITIL’s or MOF’s “how to implement.” CobIT is the IT measurement framework that is typically used by organizations that are concerned with Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) compliance.

Agile

Of course, I am including Agile!  Agile is a methodology based on guiding principles in order to promote efficiency while developing a product. Agile was initially based on a manufacturing floor practice of selecting a task to work on from a set of cards posted on a wall. Each card contained a task, an estimated amount of effort, and any required predecessors. This gave workers the freedom to select which task to perform based on the conditions at that specific moment while promoting efficiency and communication. Common practices of Agile fit well within the ITIL and MOF frameworks while promoting practices that can be measured by CobIT.

The next post will be an overview of the Microsoft Operations Framework and the benefits experienced when first implementing processes in environments where none were currently being followed.

Defining “Regulated Industry”

In the basic sense, a regulated industry is an industry that is significantly regulated by the state or federal government. This can include setting parameters and guidelines for anything from pricing and profits to production methods and even social media efforts. Common regulated industries include financial, healthcare, pharmaceutical and insurance.

Examples of Regulated Industry Regulations

An example of a regulation placed on these industries can be seen with any publicly traded company. The Regulations Fair Disclosure mandates that all publicly traded companies release material information to investors and the public at the same time. This regulation is in place to help prevent selective disclosure and insider trading.

In healthcare industries, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPPA, ensures that medical information is kept confidential. Protecting the privacy of patients is critical—and HIPPA was set in place to help make sure that happens.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), places regulations on the pharmaceutical industry. Since the industry deals with drugs and healthcare devices, it makes sense that there are an array of rules and regulations on it. For example, the FDA requires pharmaceutical companies to report all cases of adverse effects to them.

The FDA’s List of Regulated Industries

The FDA makes it easy to know which industries are regulated—they created a listing of significantly regulated U.S. industries. If you’ve ever wondered about the laws and regulations placed upon these industries, the FDA is full of resources.

Clearly, these regulations affect the day-to-day operations of these industries. However, when it comes to developing a digital strategy, it can be especially challenging to mind these guidelines. This month we’re focusing our blog posts on the process and technology of regulated industries, including how social media is being used by these highly controlled industries. So stay tuned!

SOUND OFF: Do you have anything to add to our definition of a regulated industry?

So—if you’re ready to make the investment in a usability study, what do you have to do to make sure you get the data you need?  In Part 1 of this series, I focused on the logistics of putting together a usability study and why it’s a good investment. In this post, I’ll focus on tips to create a flawless facilitator’s guide:

Understand your audience. It’s important to understand who your users are and what mindset or perspectives they bring that will influence how they approach the tasks.  For example, older users may not be as digitally savvy as younger users. But if both younger and older users are your target users, the tool must be appropriate for both. Ask questions that will help you better understand their answers. How comfortable are they with the Internet? How often do they access it? What is their familiarity or comfort with the tool or process you are testing?  Put them at ease by reminding them that you are not testing them, you are testing the tool.

Understand what you want to get out of your study.  If you are testing a transaction process for example, design your tasks to reveal how well your participants understand instructions, whether they need or use help, whether they are able to complete all the steps in the process.  Ask them how they would accomplish certain tasks or where they would look for certain features.  Ask if they thought it was easy or difficult and why.  Ask for suggestions.

Photo courtesy of Santiago Domiguez Noriega

Set up the scenario.  How will you quickly inform your participants what the test is about and what he/she will be doing?  Have a prepared introduction to the test and tasks.  Script out all instructions and tasks to make sure you don’t miss important points and to insure consistency between your sessions.

Have a plan B.  Consider the range of reactions you might get with your tasks and account for them in your script. This will enable you to continue smoothly without having to scramble to get back on track, and avoid compromising your data by causing your participant to lose focus.

Ask participants to think out loud as they work through the tasks. This is a way to capture some great quotes.

Watch your timing.   Assuming your one-on-one user-testing session is an hour, limit the number of tasks you are testing to 3 – 5.  Set a time limit for each task by testing it out prior to your actual sessions. Adjust to fit the time frame.  If a user takes longer, know ahead of time what you will skip to make up the time if you are on a strict schedule.

Note anything out of the ordinary that occurred during the test that might influence results so you can take these into account when putting together your report.

Include a post-task questionnaire to get the participant’s overall feelings and attitudes about the tasks. Did they find it difficult or easy?  Comfortable or frustrating?

Organize your data around the problems you are trying to solve.  Based on the findings, provide visual examples of how the tool or process could be improved.

SOUND OFF: What tips do you have for creating a flawless facilitator’s guide?

It all started with a video posted on YouTube in June.  The event was made to look like a Shell corporate party celebrating the company’s new oil rigs in the Arctic.  During the event, a miniature oil well drink dispenser had an unexpected and uncontrolled explosion, saturating an elderly woman with the dark liquid.  The video was made to look like it was taken without permission as the camera man was escorted out by security.

This then lead to the hashtag #shellfail going viral.  The details are quite elaborate, but from there a fake Twitter account and a website that looked like Shell’s were both created. (Warning: The content on that page is not being censored and includes vulgarity).  People were encouraged to submit their own ideas for Shell’s new marketing campaign in the Arctic on this website, which resulted in a myriad of user-generated negative ads towards Shell to flood the website.  Greenpeace, along with a group called Yes Men, took claim for the elaborate hoax.  At the same time, a fake Shell account tweeted to the public to stop or they would have to involve their legal team – another layer to the elaborate hoax.

What a PR disaster.

I worked in the convenience store industry for some time in my career.  During my time there, I managed the BP oil spill for 50 convenience stores that sold BP fuel, and had to navigate the waters of someone impersonating the company’s brand on social media.  Both were challenging experiences that lent themselves to great learning opportunities.  However, this Greenpeace hoax was something different.  This hoax had multiple layers that made it more believable that it was the real Shell.  I have had multiple discussions since this PR debacle.  Was this appropriate or legal for Greenpeace to do?  Does this actually help or hurt their cause based on how they went about doing it?

SOUND OFF: Hindsight is always 20/20.  The BP oil spill will become and remain a PR case study for years to come.  However, looking at what took place with Shell, what are your thoughts?  Does Greenpeace’s approach and how they went about the elaborate hoax help or hurt them and their cause?  How should Shell have handled the situation?

Hutson brings 30 years of financial experience in a variety of industries to Fusion Alliance. In his role, Hutson will be responsible for all aspects of the company’s financial management, reporting, and analysis. Ward brings extensive business development and technology project delivery experience to his new role at Fusion Alliance.

“We are incredibly excited to have Mike join the Fusion team,” said Doug Brown, Chief Executive Officer at Fusion Alliance. “He has been a key contributor to the growth of companies he’s served in the past, and we look forward to leveraging his leadership and experience to successfully execute our strategic plan.”

“John was the perfect choice for this position because of his unique combination of consulting and corporate experience in a variety of leadership roles,” said Doug. “John has been an integral part of technology consulting companies in Cincinnati, and has helped corporations achieve great results.”

Prior to joining Fusion Alliance, Hutson spent 14 years at LDI Ltd., LLC as Senior VP and CFO, and two years as its Corporate Controller. Prior to LDI Ltd., Hutson spent one year as Director of Treasury at Delco Remy America and three years as Division Controller at Freudenberg-NOK. Hutson also worked as Senior Manager at Ernst & Young for 10 years.

“Fusion Alliance is a unique company with a strong and dynamic management team, high value structure, and vision for significant growth driven by great customer service. I am honored to be joining the Fusion team and am excited about contributing to the positive momentum of this enterprise,” said Mike Hutson.

Ward previously served as Director of Network Enabled Solutions and Director of Business Strategy at Whittman-Hart. After Whittman-Hart merged with USWEB-CKS to become marchFirst, Ward served as Vice President of Business Development for the Ohio Valley Region. Ward then assumed the Managing Director role at Haverstick Consulting’s Cincinnati office.

Ward spent the next eight years working in leadership capacities in the healthcare industry, serving as Chief Information Officer and Director of Business Development at Group Health Associates in Cincinnati and then as Director of Health System Integration at TriHealth before joining Fusion Alliance.

“In planning my move back into consulting, I was looking for a company that was focused on delivering high-quality solutions, driving business value, and founded on integrity. Fusion Alliance is that company and I look forward to being part of their team,” said Ward.

If you’d like more information, or to schedule an interview, please call Amy Baker, VP of Marketing at 317.955.1300.

Fusion Alliance would be nothing without the people that make up our staff. Finding the perfect employees—that live our core values of ingenuity, commitment, integrity and performance—is crucial to our success. To ensure that we hire only the best, we established a recruiting team to identify prospective employees.

Similar to the Digital, Project Management and Mobile teams, the Recruiting team works tirelessly to guarantee that Fusion delivers solutions. Recruiting Team members Lisa Rose and Amy Campbell explain what it’s like to secure Fusion’s human capital in today’s employee spotlight.

What are the responsibilities of the Recruiting Team?

Lisa: We locate, interview and sell Fusion to top talent in Indianapolis [and Cincinnati]. We are also involved in many of the committees to help retain that talent once they are hired.

Amy: The Recruiters serve as a prospective employee’s “agent” by working with the individual throughout the screening and hiring process, ensuring they have a complete picture of Fusion Alliance and what it would be like to work for our company. The team also works on building a network of professionals within our core service offerings, such as mobile, application development and digital.

How does your team’s diversified skill set help you deliver solutions?

Lisa: Each team member brings varied levels of expertise from their past recruiting experience—and that enables us to react to demand by utilizing those skill sets. We are very good at tapping into each other’s strengths to deliver what the company needs. We are committed, as a team, to continue to screen candidates thoroughly and keep them at the standards that we have set for Fusion.

Amy: Our recruiters have many years of experience in developing relationships with IT and Digital professionals. We’ve recruited for different technologies, geographies and abilities. We have a high-level of collective ingenuity that each of us leverages to deliver the best solution—which in our case, is to hire the best talent.

How does your team live Fusion’s values both in and outside of the office?

Lisa: We are very involved with the many functions that Fusion offers, so we can be visible to the people that we helped hire. We try very hard to be an example of Fusion’s values to anyone we come in contact with. We always maintain a level of professionalism in the office and out of the office, as that image is crucial to continue the message that we are the employer of choice—and that Fusion attracts top talent in the Indy IT market.

Amy: Our team lives the Fusion values every day in our interactions with applicants, current employees and different departments of the company in which we interface. We strive to give applicants a good experience in considering Fusion Alliance as a potential employer by being transparent with our information and providing consistent follow up. We make sure we hire to Fusion’s values so these values live on in each employee that we hire.

SOUND OFF:  Think you would be a great addition to the Fusion Alliance team? Learn more about our career opportunities.

First and always most critical are the people who make up your internal support network.  Departments represent corporate goals and fulfill corporate needs.  Individuals can also understand and invest in your vision.  Selecting and on-boarding the right people to your governance team is crucial.  The model and roles may vary, but here is the general construct.

1. Identify an executive sponsor

Your executive sponsor should have the authority to give approval for your individual social initiatives.  This person should fit well into your company’s authorization hierarchy.  In addition to signing authority, your executive sponsor should be on board with your vision, and possibly contribute to it himself or herself.  Lastly, the executive sponsor should have a strong internal network and understand the nature of your projects well enough to recommend other internal contacts to fill some of the remaining roles of the governance model.  This role is accountable for the results of your project even if they aren’t involved in the day-to-day decisions of how to execute.

2. Compliance review committee

Compliance for the purpose of this blog series means any corporate or industry procedure, policy, or written obligation of your company to its customers and government.  For this model, compliance falls into several categories:

• Privacy – the acquisition, use, and publication of personal information
• Product Complaints – ensuring that any product feedback and complaints are reported and dealt with appropriately
• Legal – terms of use, partner contracts, legal statement review
• Marketing – branding and corporate reputation
• Purchasing – terms of engagement with partners and ensuring that partners comply with regulations

The review committee is established as a part-time entity that meets informally.  Formal gatherings and mandated meetings with formal status updates are discouraged.  One-on-one communication is strongly encouraged.

Each member is on-boarded from each department and given permission from line management to participate.  Their role is to first provide guidance before any formal requests are made to open new social spaces.  Their role expands into providing formal approvals and feedback when compliance requires it.  It is important to recognize that these individuals are brought into planning before any formal requests are made.  Use their wisdom when deciding what to do, and don’t wait until you need their signature to bring them along with you.  We strongly suggest that each member of the compliance committee have at least one personal and ongoing connection with a member of the local team. Each member of the compliance review committee should be a personal champion for your work.

 3. Team leadership

Any engagement in a social space should have input from all aspects of the internal team.  This is even more critical when the social channels focus on innovation or crowd sourcing.  We recommend the following:

• Project Owner – Someone on the team has to “own” the project.  This person is accountable to the executive sponsor and compliance review committee.  They own the internal voice.
• Compliance Lead – Titles vary but it is important to have one or more members of your team who own the understanding and interpretation of compliance regulations, policies, and procedures.  The compliance lead has all industry and corporate documentation on hand, as well as a close relationship with the compliance review committee and their collective wisdom.  It is the compliance lead’s role to be ready with an answer or know where to go find it as the local team plans new features or products.  They are the local subject matter expert (SME) and keeper of the documentation.  This person is accountable for the documentation and the connection with the compliance review committee.
• Team Lead -  Most teams already have a designated team lead.  They should be brought into the high-level discussions on social media campaigns surrounding new features or seeking customer input. Team leads have a closer view to the work and have a unique perspective on user voice and probably the greatest need to hear user voice.

4. Staff

Social channels require content.  In a regulated industry, they require carefully crafted, honest, and compliant content.  It is important that you staff your social projects to provide the content accordingly.

• Authors – We’ll discuss this at greater length in my post about local processes, but it’s important to have a group of people who can communicate freely as approved communicators without having every sentence monitored, and who can approve the content of others.  There may be company guidelines in place for this.  If not, make your own guidelines and standards.  Make them high enough to be above reproach.
• Content Creators – Social media needs content and content takes time.  Not all of your content creators need to be approved communicators.  Depending on your social project and how prolific you want to be, anticipate one to two individuals to do nothing but create content for a blog platform and one micro-blog platform.
• SMEs – Identify team members who are willing to be resources for your content creators and authors.
• Monitors – In regulated spaces, content needs to be monitored to ensure compliance.  Someone needs to have the job of actively monitoring every social project you launch.  Every project, regardless of platform, has its own goals and should be monitored accordingly.

Social media can be tremendously valuable as a personal conversation with your customer.  Regulated industries have their own set of challenges surrounding those channels, but it can be done with enthusiastic internal support.  Tune in next week when we discuss the documentation that can make social less mysterious and dangerous and more transparent and valuable.

SOUND OFF: What do you see as the right mix of people in a social media effort?

Another large, well-known company becomes a casualty of poor security practices. According to an article recently published by CSO Online, nearly a half-million user credentials were stolen from from Yahoo. A hacker activist group employed good old “SQL injection” to harvest users’ credentials from a Yahoo database.  SQL injection is not new—in fact, having been around for more than a decade, SQL injection is perhaps one of the oldest tricks in the book as web-hacking techniques go.

So what and who cares about a Yahoo security breach?

Good question. The impact of this breach is yet to be determined. Yahoo downplayed the significance of the attack, claiming that many of the stolen credentials were outdated and invalid. Nevertheless, according to the report, some credentials were associated with other well-known service providers, which could certainly put those organizations and their users at risk. Even if the (outdated) credentials turn out to be of little value to the attackers in future exploits, the breach may indicate the presence of other vulnerabilities or loose security practices (giving attackers reason enough to keep poking). For sure, the breach is doing very little to help Yahoo protect its brand reputation and preserve consumer confidence.

Wake-up call for examining your own security practices?

As mentioned in the CSO Online article, the hacker group referred to this event as a “wake-up call” for Yahoo. I would go so far as to say that this is a wake-up call for any organization with public-facing web applications. As I had written in a previous blog post, there’s no excuse for not wearing your seat belt. Turns out that Yahoo didn’t securely store the passwords contained in the database that was compromised. Yahoo seems to have forgotten to wear its seat belt.

To be fair, my intent is NOT to beat up on Yahoo. My intent is to present the example of this event for a more positive purpose: awareness. This can happen to anyone. It can happen to you. I know that sometimes we get in a hurry to move something to production, or we rush to get a product to market, or we get comfortable (and maybe a little lazy?) because “we haven’t been breached yet!”, etc. If you can’t get it right before it goes out the door, at least go back and check it after it goes out (every second counts, by the way)…and beware of the carelessness that arises from it-hasn’t-happened-yet syndrome.

Take action!

What are you doing to minimize your risk of being compromised and publicly scrutinized in the process? DON’T get caught by an oldie-but-goodie. If you’re not sure what security measures are being taken in your organization or you need help identifying what you should be doing, stop what you’re doing and call Fusion Alliance right away (or call someone, I don’t care who!). You may be just fine, but how do you know? And isn’t it worth knowing? I would bet that the good folks at Yahoo thought they were just fine, too.

SOUND OFF: What is your company doing to ensure it doesn’t get compromised by an oldie-but-goodie hacker attack?

At Fusion Alliance, we hire employees that demonstrate our core values of ingenuity, commitment, integrity and performance. Already this month, we’ve talked with members of both the Digital and Mobile teams about how they use these values on a daily basis.

This week, Mike Gilbert explains how the Project Management Team “guides the Fusion team to meet our promises to customers.” If you’d like to learn more about our Project Management Team, read on:

What kind of work does the Project Management Team do?

Mike: The project managers are responsible for guiding the Fusion team to meet our promises to customers. They understand the business problem that Fusion is solving and lead the team to address it in the most effective manner for that customer. Our PMs are responsible for utilizing the talents and expertise of the team members to deliver measurable results.

How do multiple vantage points help your team create better solutions? 

Mike: While many solutions are similar, each business problem is unique to the client. Diversified skills allow us to pool our knowledgebase to better adapt to different client situations. It prevents us from being one-dimensional or using the “cookie-cutter” approach to projects. We are continually learning and becoming better at solving business problems. Our clients expect our experiences to help them solve problems, not necessarily duplicate the same solution used at another client.

What traits do your co-workers possess that help deliver quality solutions?

Mike: Our staff has a sincere desire to help our customers. That drive creates the energy to inquire beyond the obvious, research past leanings and current offerings, and compare and double-check.

What does a “true service orientation” mean to you? 

Mike: The customer and solving their business problem is the guiding principle. Fusion’s attitude and actions are driven with this in mind. This also means “telling it as it is” in order to arrive at the true definition of the business problem and associated impact. We have to be honest about these things in order to define the success criteria of any solution we may develop.

Mike also discussed how his team’s values extend beyond business hours. Whether serving their communities, helping a neighbor or volunteering at church, the Project Management Team truly lives Fusion’s values throughout all aspects of their lives.

SOUND OFF: Do these sound like people with which you’d like to collaborate? Contact us to learn more about how our products and solutions could benefit your business.

User testing doesn’t have to break the bank. Here are some suggestions to make your user testing project efficient and productive:

Limit your test subjects to five. Yes, you heard that right!  Only five! According to usability guru Jakob Nielsen, this allows you to test almost as many usability problems as you’d find using many more participants. Why? Nielsen says that it doesn’t matter whether you’re testing websites, intranets, applications, or mobile apps, with five users you almost always get close to user testing’s maximum benefit cost ratio.  Nielsen charted 83 usability consulting projects correlating how many users were tested vs. the number of insights reported. The chart shows that across this many projects, testing more users didn’t necessarily result in more insights.  Depending upon the type of testing you’re doing, there are exceptions , so I encourage you read the entire article for more insights and useful information.

Screen intelligently. Create a recruiting screener that clearly defines all participant requirements. Decide which requirements are “make” or “break” requirements and put those at the beginning of the screener.  You don’t want the recruiter to go through a whole line of questioning only to find out that the recruit didn’t meet the one critical requirement.

Schedule thoughtfully. Consider your target audience and the time of day they will be available.  If you are targeting working professionals, evenings may be your best time for testing. If stay-at-home moms are your target, then daytime may be more convenient.

Allow plenty of time for recruiting.  In general, it takes 50 names to get one recruit. This can take a couple of weeks or more to get through, with callbacks and leaving messages. You might also consider beefing up your participant incentive if you are getting close to your testing dates and haven’t filled all your seats.

Always recruit backups.  If you are only including  five  participants, you don’t want to compromise the credibility of your study by having  fewer than five if you have a no show.  If you are doing a whole day of testing, I recommend recruiting two extra participants, and paying to have one present at all times, in case one of your scheduled participants doesn’t show up. It is well worth the additional incentive to pay recruits to “just sit there.”

Take care of observers. Watching study after study is interesting, but taxing. Most qualitative  one-on-one studies last about an hour. This is a lot of information to take in. Make sure your observers are well fed, hydrated and comfortable.  Make sure your participants are comfortable, also, so they are focused on what you are asking them about.

Limit the number of sessions. Don’t schedule more than 4 – 5 test sessions in one day.  Facilitating a one hour test is highly taxing, and requires the facilitator to “think on his or her feet” based on each individual user’s actions. Make sure you allow for a break of at least a half hour between testing sessions.

Ensure consistency. Create a note taking guide that mirrors your facilitator’s guide and enables you to record each participant’s comments and actions at each step of the test. This will enable you to scan comments collectively and quickly see consistencies and inconsistencies among participant responses.  Additionally, it will save you hours going back through recordings if you capture comments and quotes as the sessions are happening.  If you are using a user testing software such as Morae, your notes can quickly point you to a quote you want to listen to again, vs. having to shuttle through entire recordings.  Enlisting a good observer/note taker is also key in this process.

Control the environment. Make sure you choose a testing facility that can accommodate your particular needs, including type of room, equipment, times, recording, meals and snacks, as well as your recruiting needs. Recruiting is an art and it is worth it to put this in the hands of recruiting specialists.

So that gives you an idea of some of the logistics of conducting a user testing project. I my next post I will talk about the elements of an effective facilitator’s guide.

SOUND OFF: Have you done any usability testing? What did you get out of your investment?

• Ingenuity: Leveraging the collective expertise, inquisitive nature and dedication to lifelong learning, creativity and growth, to see beyond a problem to take a business dynamic from what it is to what it can be.

• Commitment: Striving to always meet commitments and to have a material impact on our customers’ organizations.

• Integrity: Remaining loyal to people and faithful to obligations as a matter of character. Preforming in a way that is above-board, honorable, ethical and forthright in all of our dealings, regardless of the circumstances.

• Performance: Providing strong business practices and reliable project delivery, centering practices on process, measurability, quality excellence and business impact.

To help better illustrate our values and what they mean to Fusion Alliance as an organization, we interviewed a number of our employees about their job and how they live out Fusion Alliance’s values every day. From the processes they use to ensure great results, to the rapid pace of technology today, here’s what they had to say about how their work at Fusion Alliance impacts their lives—and the success of our customers:

SOUND OFF: How do you define ingenuity, commitment, integrity, and performance? Do these values apply to your business?

In addition to the squirming virtually every business does at the thought of public negative feedback, two-way social conversations unleash a host of privacy and compliance concerns within regulated industries.  Here are some of those very real and right concerns:

• Do we have the internal constructs and precedent to allow us to do this?
• How do we manage the challenge of user privacy?
• What if someone reports a product complaint in a social space?
• How do we staff the effort?
• How do we listen?

Over the past year or so, I’ve been privileged to help a unique team within one of our client companies create a governance model for managing the social aspects of an open innovation initiative. Although the parent company has digital policies and procedures in place, there was little precedent for social media channels and few internal subject matter experts available to provide guidance.

What we did have, however, was a great deal of cumulative experience in building an internal support structure, navigating the local and global compliance requirements, and individuals with the knowledge, contacts, and savvy to cast the vision for our goals.  With these resources in hand we set out to blaze trails and learn how we could make social spaces valuable to both our customers and the client’s organization.  At the end of a year we have a still-evolving, but successful, governance model as the foundation for all our future social projects.

Every recipe will be different as every organization is different.  Still, we believe we’ve identified some critical ingredients that should be part of any successful social media governance model:

People – individuals do work and make things happen.  You need the right people in the right roles.

Documentation – be compliant, be accountable, be transparent

Local Processes – do the right things, the prescribed things, the valuable things

Tout Strategy – keep people onboard with the right knowledge, track progress, keep proving why it’s valuable

Create Shared Momentum – get people swim in a school rather than herd them toward an answer

We dubbed our governance model The Right Thing to Do, which is the spirit of the process, as well as our intention and the goal to which we aspire. In the following series, we’ll walk through our collective insights, trials, and errors regarding building a social media governance model, beginning with People.

SOUND OFF: What regulatory barriers has your company experienced with implementing social media?

As we mentioned in last week’s Employee Spotlight, Fusion Alliance is comprised of people; people devoted to living our values of ingenuity, commitment, integrity and performance. These people work hard each day to cultivate solutions to the problems our clients present us.

This month we’re placing a spotlight on the teams on which these people work. Last week, members of the Digital Team talked about the cross-channel digital experiences their curious and hardworking team members create. This week Alex Matsukevich and Jeff Pickett shared their experiences as a part of the Mobile Team here at Fusion Alliance.

What does Fusion Alliance’s Mobile Team do?

Jeff: We work with our clients to come up with solutions that solve a problem, and we build and ship that software. The difference [from other development teams] is that we are working in a constrained environment—from a screen perspective, from a processing perspective and from a power perspective. At the moment we are working on native Android and iOS projects in the Indy and Cincy areas.

How does the Mobile Team maintain a commitment to efficiency, quality and performance?

Alex: Testing is the key. Never sacrificing quality for speed of delivery. Above all, though, it’s the people of the Mobile Team. [They are a] great group of professionals. Plus, multiple vantage points [of a team] give us an ability to better analyze the problem and then come up with the best possible solution.

Outside of skill-sets, what other qualities do your team members possess that help them generate successful results? 

Alex: Complete dedication and commitment.

Jeff: We have put together an amazing team of smart people that just gets things done. They work hard, and don’t let any technical challenge slow them down. The team really wants to see the solution not meet, but exceed the client’s goals in every way. They spend their free time researching the best ways to design solutions and applying external knowledge that they’ve gained back to the product that they are building.

Our Mobile Team knows how to strategically develop and create applications that will further our clients’ goals and missions. They’re a hardworking, (seemingly) never-tiring team that we’re proud to have as a part of Fusion Alliance!

SOUND OFF: What kind of mobile initiatives is your company implementing?

Cryptographic hash functions are not sufficient for password hash functions. If an attacker gets hold of your hashed passwords (as happened in the Linked in case), it’s easy to recognize the hash for a given password because the hash for it is constant.   For example, the attacker can take a list of common passwords and generate the hash for each one and then compare his hashes to yours.  Every time the the hashes are equal another one of your passwords is compromised.

One solution for this problem is salting. Salting is adding a random string to the password before it is hashed.  You store the salt with the hash so you can test submitted passwords.  Of course, if the attacker gets your passwords he also gets the salts, but he has to hash each of his password guesses with all of the salts.

Of course, if it just takes microseconds to generate a hash then you may still have a problem.  This leads to Mr. Nielsen’s second point: password hash functions should be slow.  Taking a second to calculate the hash won’t be noticeable to your users, but it will make the attacker’s job billions of times worse.  The method used to slow down the hash function is called “stretching.” Stretching involves hashing the password and then hashing the hash.  That hash hashing can take place hundreds of thousands of times.

There are three common password hashing functions that both salt and stretch the hashes. They are PBKDF2, bcrypt, and scrypt.

Finally, there are libraries available for all three. Use a well-supported, widely used library. The risk of  fatal bugs is much lower that way.

SOUND OFF: What methods do you use to thwart attackers?

1. Take care of yourself.  This includes getting plenty of rest, eating well, and being active. You must feel well in order to do your best at work. Learn to recognize things that affect how you feel, and make adjustments for the better. Food, rest, and exercise are the fuel and energy that enable you to think and innovate.
2. Stay current. This is a must to stay on top of your game. Follow what is happening in your industry. How does it affect your work? Your job? Your clients? This knowledge will enhance the  relevancy and purpose of your work and how it positively impacts your world.
3. Practice self-discipline. Set goals for yourself every day and long term. Make them attainable. Don’t stop until you finish. Then reward yourself when you do. Enjoy the feeling of achievement. Go shopping. Watch your favorite show on TV. Eat a big bowl of ice cream. Then start on the next task.
4. Give yourself think time.  With anything you do, sometimes the first attempt is not the best you can do. Ideas need to “bake.” Take a pass, then come back to it later or the next day. A fresh perspective can work wonders! You’ll see it differently the next time you look at it—and you’ll see things you did not see before.
5. Manage your time. In order to be most productive, you need to plan how you will spend your time. Organize your day. Keep a list of tasks, by priority. Cross them off as you complete them. (I love doing that!) Seeing what you need to accomplish within a time frame and tracking where you are in completing the list will keep you moving.
6. Take time to recharge. Like athletes, high-performing professionals have a lot of stamina. But you can also reach a point of non-productivity. Learn to recognize this point in yourself and figure out what you require in order to recharge and reach peak performance again. For some, it may be just a walk to the vending machine down the hall, or a good night’s sleep. For others, it may be a week’s vacation, taking a course to enhance your knowledge, or even switching jobs or careers.
7. Stay inspired. What inspires you? Reading a good novel? Working on a challenging problem? Being with your family? The promise of reward? Whatever it is—make sure you get plenty of it. Put yourself in a position to experience inspiration as much as possible.
8. Envision Success. Whatever your goals are, see yourself achieving them. What’s your plan to get there? How will you react? Whom will you share your success with? What will you do next? Keep that vision in your head.

SOUND OFF: What do you do to stay in “tip top” shape on the job?

“Great! But what do you do?” you might ask. Happily, Margot Bloomstein’s Content Strategy at Work: Real-World Stories to Strengthen Every Interactive Project provides an answer.

Case studies in content strategy 

Drawing not only on her own experience but on the experiences of others, which she gathers through numerous interviews, Bloomstein builds an enlightening set of case studies around the activities of content strategy. From gathering content inventories to updating the outdated to optimizing for search engines to making content more share-able, Bloomstein walks her readers through how to make our content more valuable, engaging, and manageable. Bloomstein discusses content creation and curation, writing for websites, brand development, and social media in content strategy — as well as how content strategists work with information architects and graphic designers. And she does it all through telling stories from the trenches in a way that enlightens and (oh, yes!) entertains.

From the Tufts University “Light the Hill” project to the Johns Hopkins web team’s work, Bloomstein illuminates how content strategists bring value to digital and social media projects. Careful planning, intentional content creation, and well-considered governance turned many a nightmare-waiting-to happen (or nightmare-in-progress) into success stories. And Bloomfield documents them for content strategy professionals in ways that resonate with and instruct us.

Content strategy: an antidote for that stuff we haven’t updated lately

In the foreword, Kristina Halvorson (one of the gurus of content strategy) writes that “the word ‘content’ immediately inspires anxiety about the stuff that hasn’t been updated lately, or docs that are overdue, or the expensive CMS that still hasn’t been implemented despite months of delays” (p. xi). But content doesn’t have to be a dirty word; and content strategy doesn’t have to be a battle. Bloomstein cements the value of our profession in easy-t0-read stories and thoughtful discussion about what we do, why we do it, and with whom.

If you add only one book about content strategy to your content marketing or content management library, make it Content Strategy at Work by Margot Bloomstein.

Fusion Alliance is made up of people—people who reflect the core values of our company. Every day these people live Fusion’s values of ingenuity, commitment, integrity, and performance as they work together to develop real business solutions for our clients.

This month we’re placing a spotlight on those teams—and the people who compose them. This week we sat down with Doug Scamahorn and Bill Dawson to talk about Fusion’s Digital Team.

What does the Digital Team Do?

Bill: We work on building digital conversations with our customers’ target audiences. Sometimes it’s visual design, user experience, tone of language, email campaign – whatever resonates with the audience appropriately.

Doug: [We] seek to create cross-channel digital experiences that educate, inform, excite and move users to action. [This includes] digital strategy, user experience design, social, mobile, web, intranet, etc.

How do diversified skill-sets (of team members) allow to you deliver those solutions?

Bill: It provides a great number of perspectives and experiences, which contribute to clever and efficient customer solutions.

Doug: Leveraging the experience and skills of a diverse set of team members opens the door to opportunities that a single team member might not think of. Just as cities germinate ideas from different categories of society into an ideal environment for innovation, so does the diversity and a melting pot of experiences and perspectives of our team.

Outside of skill-sets, what personality traits help your team members generate real results? 

Bill: The wisdom that curiosity and openness drive better solutions for customers. [Plus] candor with one another and the ability to be constructively critical.

Doug: Hard work, willingness to do what it takes, accountability to one another. [Also] respect for one another and a desire to do the right thing.

Both Doug and Bill also talked about the importance of aligning decisions with business objectives and user needs, in order to make the solution an effective one. Members of the digital team know how to listen to what clients are really saying, and then create the solutions they truly need.

SOUND OFF: What questions do you have for the digital team? Share them in the comments section below!

Since I’ve been in the agency/consulting business for a while, I was curious to watch the series to see if it realistically depicted the process agencies and consultancies go through to win new business. It was interesting to observe how different agencies approach developing marketing solutions.  Some have a very formal process, using a lot of “whiteboarding” and large group brainstorming. Others utilize copywriter/art director teams.  Still others have dictatorial creative directors who subjectively crush ideas like ants. So if you’re a client about to send out an RFP, whether for a million dollars or a significantly smaller budget, this show will give you an idea of what goes on behind the scenes so you can better appreciate the importance of your role in setting the agencies up for success.

Right off the bat, I have to call AMC out on their depiction of the process. Through the magic of editing, AMC has turned it into a high drama, almost personal battle between agencies, complete with close-ups of rival furtive glances during the initial agency briefing, down to crazy all-nighters where agency folk have to sneak out to kiss their kids goodnight.  This is probably a result of the one-week time frame the agencies are given to develop their pitches, which, I suspect, was purposely manufactured to create and enhance the drama. While I’m sure it’s happened, rarely would a company expect a pitch of this magnitude in the time span of a week.

What’s Real

• People who are dedicated and passionate about their work.  As one of the ad execs simply put it: “The stakes are high.  It’s not easy being in advertising now.”  A skittish economy has many companies tightening their belts.  Advertisers want more for less and the rewards are not as big, but dedication and passion, more than monetary rewards, are what continues to drive agency folks  to produce great work.
• Coming up with The Big Idea. There is definitely a sense of satisfaction one gets from seeing their ideas “up in lights” so to speak.  But only if it’s the right idea.  As one ad exec from the show put it, “This needs to be about them, not us and our neat ideas. That’s suicide in this business.”  ‘Nuff said!
• Competitiveness.  Agencies want to win. Winning big business means they can keep the agency going and keep their jobs. If that isn’t motivation, I don’t know what is!
• The creative process. There is more to brainstorming than just sitting around a table randomly tossing out taglines. Strategists are researching competitors and the industry to inform the creative. Copywriter/art director teams work together to ensure messaging and visuals are integrated. It’s truly an iterative process with a lot of trial and error.
• The investment. When agencies pitch work, they’re  taking a risk. They’re investing thousands to tens of thousands of dollars for a chance at winning. Time spent on working on a pitch is time that cannot be billed to current clients. Is it worth it? If you win the work, typically yes. When is it not worth it? This is a strategic decision that every agency’s management should consider before accepting the challenge. Does this work support our business goals and mission? Do we have the staff and expertise to effectively and efficiently support the work?  Does this work bring with it the opportunity for more work?  All of this must be considered before making the investment.

What’s Not Real

• The one week time frame.  While many agencies will go hard for one week to win important work if that’s their only choice, having the opportunity to let ideas “bake” almost always produces far better results.  As I mentioned earlier, this time frame was likely manufactured to heighten drama, and possibly, to limit (AMC, not agency)  production costs.
• Locking-in the staff for 24-hours and taking their phones.  Need I say more? I’m willing to bet this was the show producer’s idea and not the agency’s!
• It’s all about the creative. For the most part, the “creatives” were the focus of the show: the creative directors, the copywriters, and the designers and their ideas. But what do you think they base their creative ideas on? Competitive research and industry data that was painstakingly gathered by strategists and account managers. In my opinion, this part of the process was sorely underemphasized. Successful, results-producing creative  is  always based on solid data.
• The big TV commercial. Let’s face it. Not many companies are spending big bucks on national television ads any more. (See first bullet under “What’s Real” above.)  Sometimes the “creative” is all about coming up with the most efficient ways to meet marketing objectives. And these may be quite unconventional.
• Ignoring the client’s directives. If the client clearly states not to combine his businesses into one concept, then don’t do it (see episode on Clockwork Home Services). Agencies who think they know more than the client are shooting themselves in the foot.
• A whole week in one hour. Finally, understand that what you’re seeing is a whole week’s worth of work (which should more realistically take place over two to three weeks) crammed into one hour. You’re not seeing all the details…just an abbreviated view.

If you missed “The Pitch” when it ran on AMC, all of the episodes are available on iTunes. Additionally, check out YouTube for clips from all of the episodes, some of the winning commercials that were produced as part of the show, and even some critical commentary. Even though I found it somewhat contrived, I enjoyed it purely for its entertainment value and, or course, because I’ve lived it!

SOUND OFF: I’m interested in what YOU think of “The Pitch.” If you’re a company that advertises, what did you learn about the “Pitch” process?  Or, if you’re in the ad or consulting “biz,” how does the process depicted in the show compare with the “real life” Pitch process that you’re familiar with?

Here at Fusion Alliance, ingenuity is one of our four core values. To us, without ingenuity (along with integrity, commitment and performance), we can’t deliver high-quality results.

Defining Ingenuity


On our website, you’ll see ingenuity explained thus:

We leverage the collective expertise, inquisitive nature and dedication to lifelong learning, creativity and growth, to see beyond a problem, to take a business dynamic from what it is to what it can be.

Basically, ingenuity means using the skills and knowledge we possess to devise new, innovative and unique solutions.

Providing Ingenuity

We excel at creatively leveraging our team’s diverse expertise to bring to life the best solutions to today’s problems. At the same time, we insist on developing solutions that position our customers to make the most out of tomorrow’s opportunities.

Our company as a whole, as well as the individual employees who make up our team, are creative, talented and capable people who are always looking for a new and better way to solve problems.

Without ingenuity it’s impossible for us to design and deliver highly desirable and valuable user-oriented digital products, services and experiences.

SOUND OFF: How do you definite ingenuity? Join the conversation by leaving a comment on this post!

First some background:  If you are an armchair Web historian, you know that the commercial Internet took off in late 1995 and 1996, leading to the dot-com boom era in 1998 – 2001.  Those were gang-buster times for those in technology; halcyon days, too.  Then the bubble burst and a steady retreat and quietude took place over several years until late 2004 and 2005 when Web 2.0 became a buzzword and start-ups and innovation again took root, leading us to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and all of the social media tools we use today.

Having been intimately a part of both eras, the only real difference between how 2001 felt versus today is the stock market isn’t correcting against dubious Internet stocks.  Then, as now, the overriding business sensibility felt like it was time to paddle and catch up to the crested wave, a matter of correctly deploying and using the digital marketing tools and platforms already available and doing “more, better.”

Well, one thing that all digital marketers can do more of (and better) is to tell their story in a compelling way.

We’ve all been a little too intoxicated by the fumes of digital pieces and parts, worrying about Twitter Klout scores and hashtag tracking and Facebook engagement, and various and sundry bits of minutia, not even spending one tenth of the same time on figuring out the kinds of stories we want to tell.  That’s going to change based on the tea leaves I’m reading because brands and content are quickly converging and their story is becoming THE story—the protagonist—and not a supporting character.  Three different criteria lead me to this thought:

• Big Brand Focus
• Third-Party Validation
• Overarching Organizational Umbrella

Big Brand Focus

The Coca-Cola Company is, perhaps, America’s most enduring marketer, one of the most globally recognized brands, and the tail that wags the dog, i.e., a leader that other brands emulate.  So when they announce, via YouTube, as they did last summer, that their focus over the next decade will be on content and brand stories, I pay attention and note the potential implications.  Their Pt. I and Pt. II videos (each a nice bit of storytelling) are both well worth a short time investment in viewing.

Coca-Cola Content 2020 Pt. I

Coca-Cola Content 2020 Pt. II

Third Party Validation

Part and parcel with big brand marketing investment is the Don Draper-esque need for ego gratification that goes with brilliant marketing.  Cannes Lions, one of the preeminent creative awards for brand marketers, recently added a category for Branded Entertainment. The category rewards “…creativity in branded content…defined as: The creation of, or natural integration into, original content by a brand. The purpose of branded entertainment is to deliver marketing messages by engaging consumers via relevant content platforms rather than traditional advertising methods.”

The inaugural winning video can be seen here.

Overarching Organizational Umbrella

No good movement develops without a central pivot.  Branded content has its spiritual leader in the Content Marketing Institute.  Started in 2010, the Content Marketing Institute is dedicated to “teaching marketers how to own their media channels instead of having to rent them through advertising.”  Their overview video below is similarly time well spent.

Content Marketing and the Power of Story

To me, these paths all lead to a period of time in the coming years whereby a marketer’s focus will stop working backwards in the way that Marshall McLuhan taught them.  Instead of being focused on the platform before content, they’ll start with narrative and story elements that can then be delivered, frankly, any way (and anywhere) they want them to.

SOUND OFF:  At Fusion, we have a team of content strategists focused on helping B2C and B2B brands tell their stories, using the appropriate technologies, not the other way around.  As we head into the second half of 2012, what is your digital focus and do you think my suggestion that brand storytelling will take center stage is on point, or off base?

For many, a simple press release followed up by phone interviews would have sufficed, but that’s not what happened. Columbia didn’t want to just tell us about their new gear, they wanted us to experience it.  What better way for a large group of editors from across the country to experience this new “cool” gear than in the smoldering heat and beautiful deserts of Sedona, Arizona?  Each editor had the opportunity to choose one of three activities in Sedona: hiking, yoga or mountain biking. This Hoosier put that gear to the test in 100 degree heat while mountain biking around Bell Rock in Sedona. Columbia had stations along the way where participants could get sprayed with water to “activate” the gear and cool down.

After spending three days in Sedona, some of the editors flew back home while others took an  additional three-day adventure backpacking into the Grand Canyon to Havasu Falls. This was truly one of the best experiences I have ever had and I can’t imagine a better way to test the limits of my gear than a 10 mile backpacking trek into the Grand Canyon in the sweltering heat, hiking inside the canyon on the Havasupai Indian reservation, climbing rocks, exploring caves and jumping off of waterfalls.

So how did Columbia make this experiential marketing event an experience of a lifetime?

Focus on relationships and be accessible. Columbia hired BeCore to manage the planning and logistics of the event. BeCore did an incredible job making everyone feel like an honored guest and their acute attention to detail made the event that much more of an experience. This allowed Columbia’s team to be engaged with the editors, answer any questions, build relationships and have fun experiencing the product along with us.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself. You can create a great event but the people make the difference.  Columbia reached out to people from a variety of fields and industries to come and enjoy the experience and even though the location and gear was amazing, it was the relationships that made it so memorable.

Provide the opportunity. It’s one thing to say that their product “activates” when it comes in contact with water to keep you cool. It’s something else altogether to fly you to the desert, give you a significant gift of free gear, and set you up on an adventure to put that gear to the test. Not only does it show they have a lot of faith in their own product, but further demonstrates it through their willingness to pay for each attendee to experience it.

As I mentioned earlier, Columbia invited the #OmniTen to be a part of this great event.  A question I frequently get asked is, “How did you get chosen to be a part of this?”  That is a great question and I spoke with Columbia Sportswear about this while in Sedona. But if you want to learn How To Successfully Organize Social Influencers and hear how companies like Columbia Sportswear and events like the Super Bowl in Indianapolis have successfully done it, please join me at Blog Indiana on August 10^th for the answer. I look forward to seeing you there!

SOUND OFF: What are some stories or brands you’ve seen that have utilized experiential marketing well?

As with all things, it’s important to know the history—so we know how we got to where we are today, and how to keep improving in the future. So, here’s a little website history lesson:

The Internet was born on October 26, 1969, at UCLA. A group of researchers, including Steve Crocker, sent the first message via what would later become the modern Internet.

The first website, launched in August 1991, was a basic site that provided information about the WWW project. Since very few people had the ability to access a web browser, the site was primarily used for sharing information about the WWW project amongst colleagues at CERN.

There were 2,738 websites by mid-1994, including sites from The Internet Movie Database (IMDB), MTV, Ohio State University’s Department of Computer and Information Science, and the White House. By the end of that year, however, the total number of websites surpassed 10,000.

First-generation websites had very limited layouts. All sites were built with basic HTML and only included a few colors or graphics and were heavy with text. From 1995-1996, both GeoCities and Angelfire launched, allowing people to build their own websites. Fourth generation websites use HTML 5, JavaScript, Flash and CSS. These sites, which we first started seeing in 1996, are viewed on modern browsers like Safari, Firefox and Chrome.

As you can see, we’ve come a long way in the past twenty years. Today’s websites are robust, multi-faceted and full of images, video and the opportunity for interaction. The introduction of web-enabled devices, such as smartphones and tablets, have presented new web design challenges, as well as new opportunities to reach potential customers. Safe to say, the past twenty years have been huge for websites, only time will tell what the next twenty years will bring.

SOUND OFF: What are your favorite website advancements through the years? Is your website up to today’s tech standards?

1. Web Design Ledger
   Written by Web designers themselves, this blog gives design tips and inspiration as well as tutorials and how-tos.
2. Line 25
   Line 25 is split into three categories: articles, inspiration and tutorials. Posts vary in difficulty—so there’s something for everyone, from beginners to seasoned Web pros.
3. A List Apart
   Explore the “design, development and meaning of Web content” with ALA’s articles about code, content, culture, design, mobile, process, and user science.
4. Smashing Magazine
   If you’re looking for the latest trends and techniques in Web development, check out Smashing Magazine. Here fellow designers share their work, ideas, and tactics with each other.
5. uxBooth
   User experience is (according to Wikipedia) “the practice of influencing how a person uses and experiences a particular website.” uxBooth focuses on that by publishing articles for—and by—beginner to intermediate user experience designers.
6. The Web Design Blog
   Designer Phil Matthews launched his blog in 2009 as a place to share Web design news. Now you can find Web resources, design inspiration, app and book reviews, and free downloads.
7. Speckyboy
   From tutorials and time-saving techniques to fresh resources, Speckyboy showcases innovative and original Web design styles. Even though it originally launched at Paul Andrew’s freelance design homepage, it’s evolved into an invaluable resource for designers across the Web.
8. Tutorialzine
   Martin Angelov had dedicated his blog to sharing high-quality Web development tutorials and resources. Need help with HTML5, CSS, or jQuery? Find it here.
9. Position Absolute
   A front-end developer specializing in HTML, CSS, and Javascript, Cedric Douglas blogs about his personal projects. He lets you know what works, what doesn’t, and provides resources for doing it yourself.

SOUND OFF: Have you taken on any Web design projects for your business? What are your favorite Web design resources?

Herewith then is a business-level, executive summary-style overview of the whys and wherefores to upcoming changes in top-level domains.

ICANN stands for “Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.”  ICANN is a non-profit organization that governs the management of critical technological infrastructure elements of the Internet like IP addresses and generic top-level domains (gTLDs).  gTLDs include .com, .org, .net and 19 other dot-somethings.  gTLDs do not, however, include country extensions like .ca  that our neighbor to the north uses—these are ccTLDs, country code top-level domains.

gTLDs were once tightly administered by ICANN, but after much global economic study, they determined that allowing an open application process for new gTLDs (absent trademark and anti-competitive behavior) would promote healthy competition that breeds innovation, ultimately yielding benefits for consumers.  Hence an application process was approved in the summer of 2011 and initiated in January of 2012 whereby anybody with enough patience to wade through the application process—similar to applying to an Ivy League school with a business plan, while ponying up a $185,000 per domain application fee—could potentially earn the right to have their very own .com-like extension.  Or not, if criteria for approval was not met. No refunds on the application fee, either.

On June 13, 2012, a day dubbed “The Big Reveal,” ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom announced that ICANN received 1,930 proposals for new gTLDs with some 231 of them contested amongst 751 applicants, dot-somethings like .blog, .app, .web being notable examples of gTLDs for which multiple parties are vying.

As you might expect, large U.S. companies with deep pockets are well represented in the list of applicants, with Amazon.com applying for 76 gTLDs and Google applying for 101, and several proposals in competition with each other like .app  and .music.  However, not all applicants are tech companies.  L’Oreal submitted an application for .beauty and a proposal was made for .wine, as well.

For the balance of the year, ICANN will oversee both an open, democratic review of the proposals as well as their own review after which, should multiple candidates be deemed worthy of a  gTLD for which they applied, the candidates can negotiate with each other for the rights.  Failing agreement, the gTLD would then be put up for auction amongst the candidates in which the ultimate form of democracy (capitalism) will rule the day.

So what does this all mean?  Aside from the obvious—that a good number of applicants want to sell domain names for profit, like www.silveroak.wine to Silver Oak winery—there are also legitimate innovations that may occur in culture amongst music, books, and the arts.  Enterprise businesses are also likely to leverage gTLDs.  Google might use .search to stratify their search engine business from the other services they provide, while Marriott could use their gTLD to geographically identify their hotels using a URL like www.indianapolis.marriott.

However, this is in the future and very nebulous at this point.  It should be noted that there are 22 current gTLDs, and few but the most vigilant companies have all possible domains registered to their brand name.

Yet for those without the wherewithal to plunk down $185,000 for an application, it is worth setting aside some time to do some analysis on applications to check for potential implications on your business and industry.  If you are a cartographer and .map seems like an imperative to have for your business, what if your direct competitor owns that gTLD and is not anticipating allowing other domain registrants?  Viewing their proposal and plan for the gTLD will give you insight into their intentions and an opportunity to dissent until the public comment period ends on August 13, 2012.

Overall, there are very few seismic occurrences that can catch businesses completely flat-footed. This is not necessarily one of them, as ICANN has the best intentions. But it does have the opportunity to create long-term change and should therefore be a cause for careful understanding, even if at an executive summary level.

SOUND OFF: Have you taken steps to understand how the new gTLDs might affect your brand?

There are many questions we may ask ourselves. For example, with today’s fast-paced environment and global connections, we are using email, mobile phones, Skype, and many other forms of communication. So why should we build a face-to-face community? Others may query: How will we do this? And there are many other questions also, but it is the how camp that I too am curious about presently.

I believe from my many years of working on teams and using technology that many of us enjoy and even desire the need for direct human contact. I am one. By actually being in the same room with a group of people, we develop and grow closer relationships. Often the masks we wear in our corporate lives can be removed as we develop into a community of like-minded, focused people. As the comfort levels grow, we can all help each other work on the ever-changing world of technology and software testing (including new landscapes for exploration, e.g., mobile testing).  Other ancillary reasons for building face-to-face relationships are opportunities to actually create friendships and alliances that are able to go beyond our testing interests and challenges. All of these points address a part of the why question.

Which brings us back to the how question? One factor of the how is that we have to establish a group. We do currently have a small group, and I am thankful for a couple of people who have brought this organization together here in Cincinnati—kudos to Brett Leonard and Joe Harter in starting the Software Testers of Cincinnati (SToC).

Another aspect of how is the location, and we have another thank you to the Max Train team and facility in Mason (Cincinnati, OH).

And there is the time/schedule factor. Currently, we meet the last Tuesday of the month (Note: breaking for both June and July).

And an ongoing challenge for the how is creating ideas, programs, speakers, and more.

What else do we need to make this happen? Help. I am asking for help in this blog. Please contact me or just post a remark. It is summer in the Tri-State (Greater Cincinnati business area/region) and traditionally a time for family vacations and lots of other family and personal diversions. So again I mention: following this tradition, our community, SToC, will be taking a small break (June and July). While we have this break, I am asking for help from the global community as well as the local community in building our community of testers.

SOUND OFF: Can you help? Any ideas you’d like to share?

Whether you’re building your own website or creating a plan for a web developer, here are a few best practices for website design:

Use the 80-20 Rule
Make your website more efficient by using the 80-20 rule. Determine what 20% of your site elements are delivering 80% of your site’s value—and focus on those elements. Once you’ve determined your 20%, work to eliminate the other 80% of content that’s taking up space and distracting from the essentials.

Choose A Consistent Color Scheme
Your whole website should be uniform, so choose a color scheme and carry it throughout your website. Make sure that the colors are complementary and easy on the eyes. Consider your logo, as well as the photos you have, when choosing your color scheme. Need help deciding on a theme? This Color Scheme Designer can help you determine what will look best on your website.

Place Content Above the Fold
“Above the fold” refers to the portion of your website that show up without scrolling. Since this is the first (and sometimes the only) part of your website that visitors will see, make sure you take full advantage of the space. Include your call-to-action elements here—and decrease the work visitors need to do to complete the desired action.

Offer Simple Navigation
If you want people to move around your website, make it easy for them to do so. The most common place for a navigation bar is across the top of your website—and that’s where people will be looking for it. Using universal tab names, like “Blog,” “About Us,” and “Contact Us” makes it easy for people to find what they’re looking for.

Incorporate Matching Social Media Icons
Choose social media icons that match the color and feel of your website. As long as the icons have the recognizable shape of the actual platform logos, you can change the coloring to coordinate with the color scheme of your site. These icons are so universally-recognizable that changing the coloring won’t confuse your visitors.

SOUND OFF: When it comes to website design, simple is better. Do you agree?

For Those Who Know Their Way Around Photoshop

If you’re a Photoshop wiz and just need a little instruction on creating infographics from scratch, I highly recommend Lynda.com’s infographics courses on planning and wireframing, area bubbles, and visualizing relationships.

I’ve divided these resources into two groups: tools for creating comprehensive infographics (infographics that incorporate multiple elements such as text, backgrounds, color schemes, charts, pictures, etc.) and tools for creating standalone visualizations (such as charts, tables, diagrams, or word clouds). Use both types of tools together to create stellar infographics of your own.

Comprehensive Infographic Tools

vizualize.me. A fun way to get started with infographic creation is to see yourself as an infographic—or rather, to see the information from your LinkedIn profile as an infographic. visualize.me does much of the work for you by importing your LinkedIn profile. You select what parts of your LinkedIn profile to include or exclude, and then customize the theme and style (fonts and colors) of your infographic. Share your visualized LinkedIn profile on social networks (including LinkedIn itself) with a link back to your visualize.me page.

visualize.me is in beta, and I’ve noticed a few bugs. For instance, my college education and older work experience wouldn’t display in some themes. And I had to redo font changes several times, although I’d saved the changes. But these kinks should be worked out as visualize.me matures.

vizualize.me infographic

visual.ly. You can create a quick infographic on visual.ly so long as it involves Facebook or Twitter. You select a “story,” such as a Twitter showdown or the life of a hashtag, and enter a few bits of information. visual.ly does the rest. In the future, visual.ly promises to provide more customizable infographics “in popular categories like sports, politics, and food.” But for now, it’s a great way to create quick infographics for popular hashtags or Facebook stats.

Need some infographic inspiration? Browse the visual.ly gallery of professionally created infographics (approaching 17,000 at the time of this post). Filter by category, view by layout type, or organize by characteristics like trending, most liked, newest, most commented, or most viewed. Warning: Perusing some of the best infographics on the Web can be a real time sink.

infogr.am. Log in to infogr.am with your Facebook or Twitter account to create an infographic based on one of five templates. You can then customize your creation by modifying the color scheme and adding charts (bar, pie, matrix, or line), your own pictures, titles, text, and quotes.

Piktochart. The free version of Piktochart offers five infographic themes from which to choose. (More available in the paid version.) Modify the base template by changing the color scheme and lorem ipsum text, and by adding or removing shapes, graphics, text, and special “theme graphics” unique to your chosen theme. Save your infographic to the Piktochart site, or download it as an image.

easel.ly. easel.ly is another theme-based Web app for creating infographics or data visualizations. You start by simply dragging any “vheme” (visual theme) onto your “canvas.” Customize by dragging and dropping objects, background colors, shapes, and text. You can also upload your own images.  Save your masterpiece to the easel.ly site, then share by linking, embedding, or downloading to your computer.

easel.ly infographic

Standalone Data Visualization Tools

Knoema. Need charts, maps, or tables on a broad range of topics? Knoema offers such graphic content based on 656 datasets, 19,050,000 time series, and 278,000,000 data points (and growing daily). You can select an existing visualization “gadget” to embed on your site, or export in Microsoft Excel, comma separated value, Microsoft PowerPoint, or Adobe Acrobat format. Better still, you can upload your own data to create mashups with existing data sets.

Knoema chart

Many Eyes. An experiment from IBM Research and the IBM Cognos software group, Many Eyes is a robust tool for creating visualizations using your own or others’ data. Registered users can upload their own data to create visualizations, rate data sets and visualizations, create and participate in topic centers, and select items to watch. Non-registered users can view, discuss, and create new visualizations from existing data sets. More than 20 visualization types are available, including charts, graphs, word trees and clouds, and maps. Share visualizations via Facebook or Twitter, or embed a static or live visualization on your site.

Wordle. Wordle offers a quick way to create “word clouds” from text you provide via cut and paste, blog URL, or del.icio.us user name. Customize the resulting word cloud with your choice of fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

Wordle word cloud

create.ly. create.ly is an online diagramming and collaboration tool. Its user-friendly interface offers drag-and-drop creation of professional-looking flowcharts, web mockups, interactive site maps, mind maps, Venn diagrams, network plans, chemistry labs, and other visualizations. Share with team members, or export as an image, PDF, or email attachment.

Hohli. When a quick basic chart is what you need, Hohli fits the bill. Simply select the chart type and size, then add your data and customize for look and feel.

SOUND OFF: What tools do you use to create infographics?

When you’re setting up your landing pages, keep these three Cs in mind:

1. Concrete Goals
   If you want your landing page to be effective, you must have a concrete goal in mind. What do you want people to do when they come to your landing page? Fill out a form? Join a mailing list? Make a purchase? Establish that goal before creating you landing page—and keep it in mind throughout the whole process.
2. Call to Action
   Your call to action should directly reflect the goal of your landing page. Then, support your call to action with the headline, copy and images on the page. Remember that this landing page is about one thing—so keep it simple.
3. Clear and Concise
   Since your landing page is just one page, it’s imperative that you keep your messaging clear and concise. Most people who land on the page have already read an email, tweet or blog post that they found interesting—and they’re on this page to find specific information. So make every sentence (and word) count! Your landing page should be fluff-free so that it gets straight to the point.

SOUND OFF: Have you created landing pages for your website? What kind of ROI have you seen from them?

We agree. In today’s fast-paced society, people are looking for ways to absorb information quickly—and video gives us that ability. The quicker we can convey the message, the better.

As a result, it’s crucial that you include video as a part of your digital marketing strategy. And not just on YouTube—you should also incorporate video into your website. Here’s why:

Video is dynamic
With video, people can get information both visually and audibly. They don’t just read about something—they see it in action. Often, this will give you extra credibility. Whether it’s a customer testimonial or product demo, video is a powerful and convincing way to convey your message.

Video is motivating
Customers are more likely to take action after watching a video. Once they’ve invested time to watch your video, they’re going to want to learn more. Ending your video with a strong call to action will drive customers to click, buy, or sign-up for more information.

Video supports SEO
When your video content is relevant to the content on the page it’s hosted, search engines (like Google) will index that video along with the other page content. Not only will this increase your overall search rankings, but will give you a second opportunity to show up in search results!

At Fusion Alliance, we incorporate video throughout our website and blog. These videos help explain more about our values and the technology solutions we provide. Check out our YouTube channel to see some examples of video that we’ve used as part of our digital marketing strategy.

SOUND OFF: Do you have video on your website? What kind of ROI have you seen as a result?

User Experience and Mother’s Day Flowers

As an example, consider a recent transaction I had with a popular online flower retailer. The Saturday morning before Mother’s Day, I was shopping for flowers for my dear mum (who, despite her many virtues, managed to raise a world-class procrastinator). The online transaction went smoothly, and shortly after completing the order I received an email confirmation that my flowers would be delivered no later than Sunday. The perfectly designed and executed Happy Path, right?

Unfortunately, a few hours later I noticed a voicemail on my phone. It was “Joe” from the online flower retailer calling to let me know that he’d like to speak to me about my order. He asked me to call him back at a specific phone number and instructed me to reference my order number – both of which I had to write down. I had to listen to the message several times, because Joe was a fast talker with a thick accent.

I called the number Joe provided and was dumped into an automated answering system that prompted me to speak my order number out loud. As with nearly all voice response systems, I had to yell my order number three times and scream, “YES!! YESSSS!!!!” before proceeding. At this point, the Customer Service Robot told me that my order was being processed and everything was fine.

Sunday morning, I got a little nervous about the above interaction and thought I’d better check my email to make sure I hadn’t missed an update from the retailer. There was a new email from them, but it was just welcoming me as a new account owner at their site. So, I logged back in to my account to double-check my order status on the web site and found that the order was indeed being processed (sent to a local flower shop for delivery, according to the status page).

Fast forward to 7:00pm Sunday night when I received an email from the retailer informing me that my order had not been delivered because it was not available locally:

“We left a voice mail for you to contact us to approve a product substitution so we could meet the delivery deadline, but we did not receive a respond[sic] from you.”

Yes, that’s a frustrating experience. But it didn’t have to be. I still could have been a satisfied customer even though the flowers I wanted weren’t available for delivery. Instead, each step of the company’s issue resolution process was increasingly irritating, conflicting, and ultimately unsuccessful. Here are a few things to consider when managing order failures:

1. Honor your customer’s preferred method of communication.
If a customer is using a web-based application to complete a task typically done over the phone or in person, a phone call from you may be the last thing the he wants to deal with. Ask for the user’s preference during the account creation process so that you don’t get off on the wrong foot when problems do arise. With time-sensitive issues, a phone call may be necessary to get the ball rolling, but try your best to get the customer back into his preferred method of handling transactions. A more helpful version of Joe’s voicemail message would have directed me to the retailer’s web site or phone app to resolve the matter on my own time. Instead I had to call and yell at a hard-of-hearing robot.

2. If you must call the customer, identify the problem with as much clarity and specificity as possible.
Be brief but crystal clear about what you need from the customer. Joe was brief, but vague about why he wanted to speak with me and he did not convey how urgent the issue was. He also failed to communicate the proper path for me to follow in their automated system to get to the information I needed.

3. Utilize multiple customer service channels, and make sure they’re all telling the same story.
This retailer got the first part right. Between Joe, the web-based account status, the phone-based account status, and the initial email confirmation, I had four channels of communication about my order status. Unfortunately, Joe was the only one with accurate information, and he was a little cagey with the details.

4. Be careful with the automated call centers and extra careful with voice recognition!
If your resolution process requires a return call from the customer, think long and hard about the flow of that call. You’ve already got bad news for this customer, better to have it coming from a real human than an automated system. If you’re using voice response, at a minimum, let the customer know that he can still use the keypad to enter selections.

The critical thing these suggestions have in common is the need to understand not only how your customer uses technology, but how he expects you to use technology. In the case above, this retailer lost a potential lifelong brand advocate, not by missing a flower delivery, but by failing to meet my expectations regarding how problems with my order would be communicated and resolved. Delivering on a brand promise isn’t always about delivering a product successfully; sometimes it’s about knowing how to fail successfully.

SOUND OFF: Have you experienced a successful failure? Share a customer service experience you’ve had that didn’t go quite as planned, but still left you a satisfied customer.

RELATED POST: Digital consumers meet your brand at multiple touch-points. Follow Jan Evans on a recent vacation to get a feel for a “day in the life” of a typical mobile user — with lots of opportunities for digital interactions to both succeed and fail.

The best place to start is your company website. This is the hub of all your online activity—current and potential customers come here to learn about your company, so you need to make sure all the information is there. This makes your homepage the perfect place to promote your social media presence.

Where should Social Media Links Reside?
Usually the header or footer of your site (in our case, it’s the left sidebar) are common places people will look for these links. Simply have your web team add a small icon for each platform you’d like to link to—and remember to have each one open in a new window.

Which Social Media Links should I Feature?
Although you make have several social media platforms, it’s best to only link to the top three to five. Decide which ones are most important to your business, and share those links on your website’s homepage. Platforms to consider include:

• Your company blog
• Twitter
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Google+
• Pinterest
• Instagram
• Foursquare
• Flickr

Where else should Social Media Links be Featured?
If you carry the same header and/or footer throughout your website, your social media links will be featured on each page of your website. That way, your visitors have ample opportunity to click over to your social platforms. If the layout of your blog differs from that of your website, be sure to include social media links there as well—and make it easy for people to share your blog posts via Twitter and Google+ (or the other sites you’ve deemed most important for your business).

SOUND OFF: Do you have social media links on your website? Which ones do you feature?

Borrowing from Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffet’s longtime folksy and pragmatic shareholder letters (dating to 1977) and his more recent Berkshire Hathaway “Owner’s Manual,” a “Who’s who” line-up of rock star tech leaders have taken the opportunity to use their public platform to idealize their business philosophies.  Amongst Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, Jeff Bezos Amazon.com and Sergey Brin and Larry Page’s Google, their Investor Letters all contain four common threads and essential truths that anybody in business can apply to their situation:

Align Your Business towards a Big Mission

Business is not business unless there is a big, societally impacting goal to achieve.  For Amazon.com, it is an opaque notion of sustainability, “Something we can all tell our grandchildren about.”  For Google it’s, “…Abundant, free and unbiased access to high-quality information.”  In a similar vein, Zuckerberg’s Facebook mission is, “To make the world more open and connected…to strengthen how people relate to each other.”

The Bottom line:  It is a long held management truth that employees want to rally around something bigger than themselves.  Is your mission big enough to position your organization to impact the world for the better?

Think Long term

Within our quotidian work routines exists opportunities to take shortcuts for the here and now. Zuckerberg notes that Facebook, “(Doesn’t) build services to make money, we make money to build better services.”  Bezos says succinctly, “It’s all about the long-term.”  The Googler’s say, “We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served as shareholders – and in all other ways – by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains.”

The Bottom line:  In an, “Information saturated, do more with less, what have you done for me today” work culture, the temptation is to worry about the future in the future.  Enduring companies do not take short cuts, nor let their employees take short cuts.

It’s All about Hiring Good, Smart People and giving them Meaningful Work

Is there a more shopworn business phrase than, “Our people are our most important asset?”  Perhaps, not, but our three leadership examples apply a well-intentioned and fresh take on what can border on the trite.  Brin and Page indicate, “Talented people are attracted to Google because we empower them to change the world.”  Bezos suggests, “Setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been, and will continue to be, the single most important element of Amazon.com’s success.”  Zuckerberg has codified his employee ethos into a phrase, “The Hacker Way.”  Couched within the hacker-ish notion of continuous improvement he says, “We work hard at making Facebook the best place for great people to have a big impact on the world and learn from other great people.”

The Bottom Line:  If you want to soar with the eagles, don’t (hire) turkeys.  Talented people want to work with other talented people.  Hiring average people leads to an average organization.

Relentlessly Focus on Your Customers

Everybody who gets up in the morning and walks into an office does so in service to a customer. Our sage business leaders don’t forget this.  Zuckerberg’s vision is centric to not just his customers, but also his customer’s customer.  He says, “A more open world will also encourage businesses to engage with the customers directly and authentically.”  Brin and Page indicate, “Serving our end users is at the heart of what we do and remains our number one priority.”  Bezos, leading the most obviously product and service-oriented business notes, “Obsess over customers” by providing added value they can’t get anywhere else.

At Fusion, we’re a much smaller company than any of the aforementioned, but that doesn’t mean we don’t live by a core set of values – in fact, it’s at the heart of what we do.  Our promise touches on each of the four elements above and says:

“We will meet you where you need us, where your opportunity exists today.  We will listen, we will dig in, and we will deliver the right solution for your business.  We will also look beyond today’s opportunity to see your business more completely, and we’ll ask the questions that help you gain a clearer perspective on tomorrow’s possibilities.  But this is more than how we make our living – this is how we at Fusion Alliance have chosen to spend our lives, and this work is an expression of our passion to explore, collaborate, invent, and create a significant, measurable difference in our clients’ businesses.  It is what we do.  It is who are are.  Every time.

SOUND OFF:  Are the above four leadership focus areas in place in your business?

I haven’t always had a good relationship with Microsoft Project. In fact, when I first started using it, I found it rather aloof and unapproachable with all of its high falutin’ views and fancy reports.  MS Project has kind of a bad rap for being difficult and complicated. But I was determined to break through that intimidating exterior and make it my friend. After all, I had hours and resources and budgets to manage and I needed that valuable information to back my status reports and forecasts.

When we first started working together, I found it a struggle.   But I jumped right into the ring ready to defend against whatever jabs came my way, whether it be circular references or over-allocated resources.  The more hits I took, the more I learned how to control its complex behavior and make it work for me.  After some initial bumps and bruises, I am actually getting some great things out of this relationship:

Solid Estimates

MS project is a great estimating tool. It forces me and my team to think through all of the tasks and effort required to deliver a project and generate a proposal estimate I can support and be confident in if we win the work. Your business development partner tells you it’s the right approach, but the cost is too high and the customer will never buy it? No problem. Adjust the rates.  Timetable too long?  Add more resources.  MS Project gives you control of all the variables you need to make a plan that fits your needs and shows you what you need for success.

Accurate Forecasts
Every week I have to turn in a resource forecast. I go to the Resource Usage view of each project plan, and I can see the hours by resource, as well as what tasks are to be completed that week. Not only do I keep my managers happy by providing them an accurate forecast of my team’s hours — I can also tell my team members exactly what they need to accomplish that week.  This makes me look like I’m on top of my game.   That’s because I am, thanks to this cool feature of MS Project!

Updatable Schedules