Integrated Modelling and Design in detail
IMD™ is based on performance modelling and the Balanced Scorecard, with Prince2 as the surrounding project management process. The following diagram shows extra detail behind the eight steps.
Strategy
The strategy for the technology application has four components: business, experience, technology and change management. Generally, all four help identify what needs to be done to ensure the application will deliver on the organisation’s KPIs.
Using the change management strategy as a context ensures its eventual implementation is supported by the right activities, such as new business processes, training, job redesign or different performance management methods.
We deliver:
- Business management strategy (through our partner changedrivers)
- Change management strategy (through our partner changedrivers)
User / Experience strategy - Technology strategy (through our partners changedrivers and Object Consulting)
Change management
New technology can be considered as a change management tool, providing the organisation with an opportunity to improve the way it goes about its business and delivers its products and services. The new technology can replace and improve current methods of doing business to improve value, reduce costs and compete more effectively. However, it’s is just one driver of performance. You need to consider how staff and customers will react, business process reengineering, training requirements, line management support, other upstream and downstream organisational systems and the culture. All of these will impact on the success of the application.
We deliver:
- Systems and change (through our partner changedrivers)
- Aligning people and change (through our partner changedrivers)
Requirements modelling
To understand exactly what the technology will deliver, the business requirements cover the specific business processes and rules to be implemented, while the experience describes what it will be like for the people using the application. The technology requirements describe the technology infrastructure needed for the application, and the change management requirements involve the specifics of the change surrounding the application.
We deliver:
- User requirements workshops to understand what people need and how they want to work with technology
- Usability testing of current applications to identify strengths and weaknesses
- Online surveys to identify the causal drivers behind people’s behaviour
- Competitive analyses to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Performance modelling
The Performance modelling has the Balanced Scorecard at its core to keep the application requirements, design and development focussed on business performance and KPIs.
It describes the broad workflows and processes the organisation engages in or provides to customers, and how the technology will specifically support this. It is critical to understand where various inputs to the application are coming from, how various outputs will be used by others and what other things contribute to performance.
We deliver:
- Performance modelling to determine the fundamental cause of performance
- Balanced scorecard development to provide a measurement and management framework
Architecture and design
Once the requirements and performance model have been developed, this stage is where the application starts to come to life. The specifics of the user interface, technology, and change management designs are established.
We translate requirements into design according to best practice in psychology, human-computer interaction, process design and ergonomics.
Our design process uses an iterative approach to creating a fast, efficient and effective user interface to achieve a significant and measurable performance improvement. This involves new process and task designs, information architecture and user interface design.
We deliver:
- Business functional specifications
- User interface architectures
- Information architectures
- High performance user interface designs
- Interaction designs
- Graphic Design
- Change management design (through our partner changedrivers)
- System architecture (through our partner Object Consulting)
Development
The development phase starts when the entire user interface and requirements have been fully documented, regardless of the development methodology (e.g. Agile). Design and development teams work alongside us to ensure the translation from usability to development is smooth.
We produce specifications that can be directly coded from and use partners to deliver design and development. We also regularly work with the client’s development team, if required.
We deliver:
- Enterprise application development and systems
- Content management systems
- Bug, functionality, compatibility, server load and stress testing
- Website, intranet, extranet and Flash development
- Implementation and launch
Implementation and launch
Once the development has finished, it moves in to the implementation and launch phase. During this stage, both the technology and the change management interventions will be engaged.
One of the key activities is user acceptance testing, which confirms the design by providing testing in the areas of usability, accessibility, technical, browser compatibility and load / stress. By testing before you launch, you avoid embarrassing problems and not delivering to client expectation.
We deliver:
- Usability testing
- Accessibility testing (through our partner Accessible Information Solutions / Vision Australia)
- Eye tracking
- Bug, functionality, compatibility, server load and stress testing (through our partner IV&V)
- Change implementation (through our partner changedrivers)
Continuous improvement
Once the product is live, it’s not enough to just leave it there. We need to monitor its ongoing performance — if it’s not measured, it’s not managed.
As one of the most important steps, the performance of the product is benchmarked within the Balanced Scorecard framework to ensure it continues to meet user and business requirements. If it does not, then ongoing strategy, research, design and development can be conducted to ensure the technology product is at the leading edge, providing the required value, benefit and competitive edge.
We deliver:
- Satisfaction surveys to monitor ongoing performance
- Ongoing usability and performance testing
