Source: www.iRise.com

Why visualization is critical and relevant for today’s challenges

Strategic Collaborative Solutions, LLC has an exclusive Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) relationship with iRise to introduce and sell its technology and services to Federal clients within the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Transportation. As articulated on its web site, “iRise is an enterprise grade application definition platform used to quickly assemble working previews of business software that mimic the exact look, feel and behavior of the final product. iRise empowers stakeholders to test drive and fully interact with proposed business software before any coding which eliminates confusion about what to build, cuts project cost and accelerates delivery.”

This White Paper was developed in collaboration with Mr. Dean Terry, who is iRise’s Executive Vice President, Federal & Aerospace/Defense Sector. This paper is designed to provide the organization’s senior leadership with a general background of iRise’s visualization technology and the many benefits of employing this technology. 

iRise is being used by leading private sector companies. The distinguished list includes, but is not limited to: FedEx, Bank of America, CSC, BP, Delta Airlines and Capgemini. In the Federal sector, clients include but are not limited to: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Department of the Treasury (IRS). The technology has been deployed across such diverse industries as Retail/Distribution, Financial Services, Energy, Automotive, Industrial/Manufacturing, Biotech/Healthcare, Telecommunications and Insurance.

An agency’s ability to respond quickly and effectively to emerging situations depends on innovation, agility and speed—all which are byproducts of employing iRise’s visualization technology.

The benefits include:

• Visual, interactive visualizations eliminate confusion, accelerating time to market;
• No confusion means no rework and lower project cost;
• Business analysts become prototyping powerhouses, freeing development resources;
• Outsourcing strategies can now be executed with low risk;
• Usability design can be moved to the front of the development process, improving adoption & cutting training costs; and,
• Downstream organizations get a head-start on test scripts, documentation & training, speeding up the delivery process.  

Discussion

Many U.S. Federal agencies have long provided leadership in the use of information technology (IT) to enhance the delivery of government services, such as healthcare delivery and benefits. 

Mission-critical government IT platforms, that in year’s past provided innovations such as the Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS), My HealtheVet, Case Management Solutions (at DHS, USAOC, & IRS) and other innovations, must be modernized and re-architected to support a user/citizen/patient centric approach, rather than organization- or facility-centric approach to managing and providing information.

This requires a new focus within the agencies on systems engineering and business architecture integration as a complement to the agencies historic capabilities for IT innovation. As a result, establishing a new balance between systems engineering and innovation, and ensuring that innovation continues to be strength of the agencies have become important challenges. This has never been more important for Federal agencies than it is today!

These challenges underlie the growing importance of the technology and practices for continued government IT leadership. The OCIO and CTO play a central role in identifying promising new IT technologies and practices, sponsoring strategic change initiatives, and facilitating on-going innovation in the agency. Many agencies have designed and are establishing an “Innovation Sandbox” to provide a new enterprise computing environment for innovators to continue their critical role in IT innovation within the agency. CIOs and CTOs at VA, DHS, DOS, IRS, Treasury, AOC, DOD, and ODNI have undertaken an exploration of visual simulation practices and technology to determine their potential for addressing challenges faced by agencies as they modernize their business and clinical systems.

Among others, we at SCS and iRise know that IT can be the essential enabler of a “Shared Space” (Innovation) ---based on “Visualization”--- that delivers dramatic improvements in communication, collaboration and innovation[1].