10/22/2003

iRise, an enterprise software and services company “dedicated to bridging the communication gap between business and IT,” says CSAA, the American Automobile Association Member for orthern and Central California, Nevada and Utah, has deployed iRise’s software simulation technology to validate requirements for large-scale, Web-based automotive insurance and membership applications.

The CSAA engagement is the first for iRise’s new Application Definition consulting service. With the Application Definition service, iRise Application Simulator is made available for the duration of the engagement, which typically lasts three to six weeks. iRise sasy its “professionals work with all stakeholders to elicit requirements rapidly, and then facilitate a cross-functional effort to organize, prioritize and visualize those requirements.”

Targeted at the Fortune 1000, iRise Application Simulator “enables business analysts to create a functionally-rich, data-aware, interactive simulation of Web applications without a single line of code, allows business users to use and test software prior to development, supports remote collaboration in the requirements definition process, and eliminates up to 40 percent of development costs overall,” iRise asserts.

With more than four million members in Northern California, Nevada and Utah, the AAA Member sought an application definition platform that would enable it to jumpstart creation of new Web-based auto insurance and membership renewal applications, iRise notes. “CSAA selected iRise’s Application Definition service to rapidly gather, analyze and validate business requirements,” iRise points out.

According to the vendor, “For the CSAA engagement, iRise delivered clear, correct, and complete business requirements validated by all relevant stakeholders, as well as inventory and specification reports. These reports included functional specifications for the development team, requirements inventory reports and file exports for project managers, and HTML exports for user interface designers.”

“The iRise Application Definition service delivers the considerable benefits of iRise Application Simulator, but in a focused, time-critical manner, to give our software definition and development initiatives the clarity they require,” said Andrew Goldsmith, Vice President, Information Technology Business Development. “Rapid execution is the critical success factor for us. We were so pleased with the results of the solution that we purchased the iRise Application Simulator platform at the conclusion of the engagement.”

“We formed the Application Definition Service to help clients create a set of validated requirements that can be understood by both business and IT users alike,” said Emmet B. Keeffe III, CEO and co-founder, iRise. “The iRise Services team has developed pragmatic, efficient techniques for rapidly gathering, analyzing and validating business requirements that enable mission critical development projects to start right. Clients also benefit from our ‘best practices’ experience and expertise, which complement a series of very comprehensive deliverables.”

IRise says, “The goal of each iRise Application Definition engagement is to create an accurate, comprehensive set of validated requirements that can be embraced by stakeholders at every level of a given project. This is accomplished through Requirements Gathering; Requirements Analysis; and Requirements Validation. Known as "G-A-V,” the three steps form the simple foundation of iRise’s approach to successful Application Definition.

“Along with the G-A-V framework, iRise’s Application Simulator platform is an essential part of the company’s new service line. iRise Application Simulator finds missing requirements early, makes stakeholder review sessions more engaging and productive, and ensures that business applications actually meet the needs of the business. While the framework and platform are the foundation of the iRise Application Definition solution, its true differentiators include the real-world-tested, practical best practices that are applied during iRise Application Definition engagements.”