The white paper discusses the potential of Encavas, a computer-aided application design system that simplifies software application authoring by merging roles typically held by programmers, analysts, and project managers into a single competency. It claims that this 'see-no-code' approach may significantly reduce the need for traditional programming, particularly as organizations seek to adapt to rapid market changes and improve agility in software development. It emphasizes how new organizational designs and tools like Encavas can facilitate a quicker, more cost-effective approach to creating business applications while transforming the norms of software delivery.

1. WHITE PAPER
DISPLACING THE PROGRAMMERS
IAN TOMLIN
OCTOBER 2012
www.ndmc.uk.com

2. WHITE PAPER| Displacing the Programmers
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Contents
CIO BRIEFING: DISPLACING THE PROGRAMMERS ..................................................... 1
1. Introduction ...................................................................................................... 5
The Emerging Need For Rubber-Walled IT ................................................................ 6
Norms of Behaviour in Software Delivery ................................................................. 7
A New Organizational Design .................................................................................... 8
The Evolution of Something Better That Works… ..................................................... 8
About Encanvas® AgileWorkshop™ ........................................................................... 9
2. How Encanvas® AgileWorkshop™ Transforms Apps Authoring .......................... 10
Deploy the Applications Environment ..................................................................... 10
Discovery, Requirements Analysis and Design Definition ....................................... 11
Applications Authoring, Testing and Tuning ............................................................ 11
Deployment and Documentation ............................................................................ 12
User Acceptance Testing.......................................................................................... 12
Iteration and Optimization ...................................................................................... 12
General Release ....................................................................................................... 12
Support, Monitor and Review Requirements .......................................................... 13
3. Advantages of Encanvas over Programming ..................................................... 14
3. The Impact of Change on Programming ............................................................ 18
5. Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 19
About the Author ..................................................................................................... 20
About NDMC Ltd ...................................................................................................... 20
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Encanvas Secure&Live™is a ComputerAidedApplicationsDesign
(CAAD) system that installs a near-real-time method of authoring
business software applications. It differs from previous systems and
methods (such as Rapid Applications Development, Agile and
Workflow) by morphing the role of project manager, business analyst
and developer into a single role competency. This is made possible
by a new ‗see-no-code‘ form of apps design and deployment tooling
that can de-skill the life-cycle of applications development formed
around a unifying tool-kit and common skills competency.
CAADembeds IT transformation into the change process and
subsumes the role of programming in the development of business
applicationsin support oforganizational process change.
While all three roles of project manager, business analyst and
programmer are impacted, the most obvious casualty of this step
change is that substantially fewer programmers are needed to
contribute to the design of business applications. So does this
disruptive approach make programming redundant?
This white paper considers the impact of near real-time workshop-
based CAAD platforms like Encanvas on the world of programming.
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1. Introduction
The Origins of Encanvas
Encanvas was conceived in 2002 by the founders of NDMC initially as an idea that
in future business users would work in social groups that span across enterprise
boundaries and that they would expect to be able to author applications for their
communities in a form purposely sculptured to the needs of the community of use.
The idea of socially-centric, built for purpose and potentially thrown away software
was unknowingly endorsed by technology thought-leader Clay Shirky in his essay
‗Situated Software‘ published in March 2004 when he wrote, ―Part of the future I
believe I'm seeing is a change in the software ecosystem which, for the moment,
I'm calling situated software. This is software designed in and for a particular social
situation or context. This way of making software is in contrast with what I'll call
the Web School (the paradigm I learned to program in), where scalability,
generality, and completeness were the key virtues.‖
In August 2007, LubaCherbakov and a team from IBM wrote the first of two articles
on what they described as ‗Situational Applications‘. In their paper titled ‗SOA
meets situational applications, Part 1: Changing computing in the enterprise‘,
Cherbakov and her colleagues defined the attributes of Situational Applications,
stating, ―The loosely accepted term situational applications describe applications
built to address a particular situation, problem, orchallenge. The development life
cycle of these types ofapplications is quite different from the traditional IT-
developed,SOA-based solution. SAs are usually built by casualprogrammers using
short, iterative development life cycles thatoften are measured in days or weeks,
not months or years. Asthe requirements of a small team using the application
change,the SA often continues to evolve to accommodate thesechanges.
Significant changes in requirements may lead to anabandonment of the used
application altogether; in some casesit's just easier to develop a new one than to
update the one inuse.The idea of end-user computing in the enterprise is not new.
Development of applications by amateurprogrammers using IBM Lotus® Notes®,
Microsoft® Excel spreadsheets in conjunction with MicrosoftAccess, or other tools
is widespread. What's new in this mix is the impressive growth of community-
basedcomputing coupled with an overall increase in computer skills, the
introduction of new technologies, andan increased need for business agility.The
emergence of Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax)—which leverages easy access
to Web-baseddata and rich user interface (UI) controls—combined with the
Representational State Transfer (REST)architectural style of Web services offers an
accessible palette for the assembly of highly interactivebrowser-based
applications.‖
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The Emerging Need For Rubber-Walled IT
Like any eco-system, organizations operate within a context of their environment –
their market-place, their locality, the people that serve them, suppliers that provide
raw materials and services, customers that buy from them. These external factors
shape the way organizations behave. But there are also internal factors that
influence behaviors and how decisions are made such as culture, norms of
operating behaviour, and perceptions of what good practice is and should be.
The 20th century was about industry and mechanization. The vision of most
business leaders was to achieve economies through a blend of productivity
enablement and mechanization, to become lean and mean; to be excellent at
those internal processes that would drive production, market share and ultimately
shareholder value. And most of these organizations, if not all, operated a
command and control management structure that meant the educated few
directed the uneducated masses.
Humans in this picture of a perfect organization were little more than drones that
were to be owned, told what to do and then paid a salary for their labours.
The 21st century is about agility. Improved telecommunications, travel methods,
computing and the Internet have all contributed to the globalization of markets.
Seemingly every product or service is within reach ‗at the speed of light‘ as Bill
gates, founder of Microsoft® put it. The state of competition has changed with
some regions of the world enjoying advantages in lower cost labour supply, while
others benefit from western world brand leadership. The balance of power rests
on adaptability and the recognition that markets are changing their shape and
structure. The Darwinist mantra of ‗survival of the fittest‘ has morphed into ‗survival
of the most adaptable; the fastest to market; the organization most able to respond
quickly to new and emerging customer wants. Traditional Michael Porter-esque
marketing strategy concepts of ‗winning market share‘ in static markets have been
corrupted by a paucity of examples of markets converging, deforming,
transforming - and with new competitors, those able to leverage their privileged
assets and operational capabilities, emerging from different industries; seemingly
appearing from nowhere.
Mechanization has run its course with most organizations are reasonably efficient
at managing their internal processes; generally using the same tools and similar
methods to achieve their outcomes. Competitive advantage is more about
adapting to market opportunities and change FASTER than competitors than it is
about sharpening pencils and cutting resources that support processes down to
the bone.
To survive and secure growth in this harsh trading environment, organizations
require adaptive capabilities – rubber-walled buildings that can scale as a business
grows, populated by a rubber-walled talent pool, equipped with rubber-walled IT.
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Norms of Behaviour in Software Delivery
The traditional view of applications development has been formed around the
concept of mechanization: creating software applications that automate and
formalize internal processes that rarely change in support of a business model and
strategy that rarely changes. In a new era of market agility, leaders need and
expect their IT to become just as adaptable as their organization needs to be.
One of the inhibitors to change is the fact that the majority of people engaged in
the authoring of software applications today are programmers and yet the activity
of programming – its consequential impact on the time, cost and complexity of
authoring new applications - is itself a barrier to innovation.
A significant challenge of the change facing the IT industry is that the people that
need to shape IT also need to be the same people that are close to the process –
and those traditional skills that were once cherished will by necessity take a back-
seat to a deeper understanding of business needs and processes.
The norms of behaviour and attitudes that pervade in departments responsible for
delivering effective information systems have evolved over decades and are
unlikely to change within moments. It is taken as a given that it is less risky to
purchase ready-to-use software applications rather than build them; that larger
software companies make better software than smaller ones; that no software
tooling could possibly have the dexterity to meet broad needs and remove the
need for programming. To a large extent it serves the stakeholders of the IT
industry – the large software companies, IT leaders and skilled IT professionals – to
maintain this false status quo and avoid risk of change. But this status quo does
not meet the needs of organizations facing bourgeoning IT costs and a slow pace
of change – or knowledge workers whose business software tools fall short of their
direct needs (and often poorer in quality than the applications Users enjoy on their
mobile phone!).
In order for norms of behaviour to change there has to be evidence of ‗something
better that works‘.
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A New Organizational Design
It‘s unrealistic to expect change to happen in organizations ‗organically‘ when
departmental structures encourage the status quo to pervade by operating
budgets and incentives plans shaped around the reality of business behaviouras it
works today.
For this reason, some organizations are today creating improvement teams – so-
called ‗organization departments‘ – that unite a blend of capabilities needed to
affect and embed change into organizational culture. These departments
blendskills including performance management, organizational design, compliance
management, human resources management, project management, business
analysis and information systems management.
New tooling is needed to equip these hybrid change teams with the means to
shape technology as they shape processes. Organizations that have adopted this
‗internal change agency‘ concept like Volkswagen Group are achieving a
substantially faster pace of growth compared to industry peers.
The Evolution of Something Better That Works…
First launched in 2002, Encanvas® is a technology platform to facilitate the
authoring of business applications on-demand in support of process improvement.
Encanvas®Secure&Live™ is the second generation Encanvas®architecture that
promises to arm organizations with rubber-walled IT that can grow and shrink
according to need without traditional frictional costs of change. It removes much
of the programming overhead associated with custom applications development
and the requirement for many specialist tools needed to author business
applications. Whilst Encanvas® changes the method of design, delivery and
operational maintenance of IT, it does not fundamentally manifest changes in the
operating environment: the applications it produces use the Microsoft® Web
Platform and standard web browsers as their conduit to Users.
Case studies suggest that the outcome of using Encanvas® is to cut applications
time-to-market by at least a factor of ten and it produces applications and
websites that can be as much as ten times cheaper to run.
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About Encanvas® AgileWorkshop™
Encanvas® AgileWorkshop™ is a pre-shaped deployment of Encanvas® designed
to equip organizations (and/or their technology providers) with the means to
author situational applications in near real-time within a workshop environment
that directly engages the intended stakeholders of the application being authored.
How it works:
1. A new workspace is created on Encanvas Remote(Spaces)™.
2. A business analyst interviews stakeholders and defines the scope of the
application and shapes the parameters of the workspace (data sources,
users and user groups), requirements for records, processes, reports and
meta-tables. A Case File is created.
3. From the detail captured in the Case File, an applications designer authors
a prototype ‗canvas‘.
4. The designer and stakeholders meet in a workshop and they walk through
the canvas design, iterate the application. Once satisfied with the outcome
the application is deployed.
5. Stakeholders test the application and feedback change requests to the
business analyst. Changes are made remotely to the site.
6. Once the iterations have been completed, the application is signed off for
general release.
Notes:
Look-and-feel parameters are pre-defined using a template to comply with
a corporate standard.
The design elements of Encanvas are pre-tested for performance tuning
and browser compatibility so there is no need to conduct a testing/tuning
phase.
All components of the Encanvas architecture are built with security
provisioning in mind. This means there is no risk of security protocols
being unwittingly usurped during the design process.
Data access security and user permissions management duties remain
under the governance and scrutiny of IT administrators.
Encanvas® AgileWorkshop™ creates a step-change in the way organizations
approach how they source new applications for their business making it more
cost effective and less of a risk to design and build new applications than
procure off-the-shelf solutions.
Many of the ‗jobs‘ in the lifecycle of authoring new applications are improved or
made redundant by Encanvas® AgileWorkshop™. The next section qualifies each
of these jobs and the impact of change.
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2. How Encanvas® AgileWorkshop™ Transforms Apps Authoring
The generally acceptedstages of Application Life-cycle Management (ALM) are:
(Install Platform) Deploy the applications environment
(Design) Discovery and requirements analysis and design definition
(Build) Applications authoring, testing and QA
(Deploy)Deployment and documentation
(Operate) User acceptance testing
(Optimize) Iteration and optimization
(GR) General release
(Support) Support, monitor and review requirements
These stages of Application Lifecycle are used to qualify the impact of Encanvas on
the applications development process.
Deploy the Applications Environment
The job: Install hardware and software infrastructure
Encanvas® Remote(Spaces)™ is a proprietary architectural component of the
Encanvas® Secure&Live™ platform. It orchestrates the formation of private clouds
on-demand using parameterized configuration settings delivered through
administration tools. This technology resides at the Encanvas® data center and
removes the obstacles of infrastructure setup and configuration.
The job: Protect systems and data against loss and ensure systems resilience
Encanvas® has been developed on the Microsoft® Web Platform and inherits all
of the advantages of Microsoft‘s own platform security features designed with
large enterprises in mind. Encanvas® employs its own Web Server used to
orchestrate the on-demand serving of pages from Microsoft® SQL Server and
other data repositories. This means it‘s not possible for hackers to target static
web pages as they do not exist until served by Encanvas® Web Server™.
Encanvas‘s User Permissions policies are based on the progressive assignment of
permissions unlike other competitive systems that assign Users a standard level of
permissions to then progressively remove them.
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The job: Replicate and scale deployments
Encanvas® is designed to scale painlessly, creating hundreds if not thousands of
applications and workspaces from a single integrated platform. Its Web Server
Manager™ cockpit provides administrators with full visibility over configuration
settings. All aspects of deployed applications are configured through
parameterized settings negating the need for programming or the manual setup
of operating environments, log files etc.
The job: Maintain the software environment
New remote spaces (applications instances) can be created by systems
administrators using the configuration tools of Encanvas® Remote(Spaces)™
without programming or the need to setup operating systems or applications
environments.
Discovery, Requirements Analysis and Design Definition
The job: Determine Scope of Use
Determine the role of the application and who will use it; Determine what core
records and sub-records are required; Determine what processes are actioned by
the application; Determine the data records and tables required; Determine reports
required by stakeholder groups; Determine setup meta-tables.
The job: Create a Case File and Job Definition
Encanvas Casebook™ provides an online tool-set for creating a Case File and Job
Definition for a design project. It establishes a simple project process where
milestones can be assigned and responsibilities allocated. This builds a record of
project actions and contributions to ensure appropriate governance. The structure
of the case file builds a complete picture of requirements and the desired
outcome. This knowledge of project activities builds for future review and scrutiny
so learning lessons can be captured.
The job: Create a prototype design concept
It‘s normal for workshops to be pre-empted by the development of a straw-man
prototype. This is to avoid contributors starting their workshop looking at a blank
canvas! The information captured in the case filefrom the discovery phase forms
the basis of the prototype design. This can then be iterated in the workshop phase
working collegiately with stakeholders. There is no pressure for the prototype to
be ‗perfect‘ from the outset because the activity of iteration engages stakeholders
more into thinking about ‗what will work‘.
Applications Authoring, Testing and Tuning
The job: Create an application that works through iteration
A workshop normally involves a project manager, business analyst (author) and
various stakeholders and contributors. Workshops take the form of a design
forum where a prototype is considered and debated by participants and changes
are made iteratively to the design. Some changes will be made immediately.
Where the design needs considerable iteration, the workshop may be halted and
re-convened once the bulk of change requests have been applied. The designer
captures change requests and ensures the application progresses smoothly
towards its ideal design (consistent to the case file outcome definition).
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Deployment and Documentation
The job: Publish the application
The outcome of the workshop phase is an application that stakeholders believe will
meet the required need. Once an agreement is reached by the project team that
the solution is fit for purpose ‗in principle‘ it is made available as a published
application for User Acceptance Testing (UAT). There is no significant transition
between the pilot phase and the UAT phase given that the Encanvas platform
removes any need for platform installation, design iteration, testing or
performance tuning. There may nevertheless be activities such as the authoring of
help notes and documentation (and the assignment of permissions, data structures
etc.) that can delay UAT by hours and sometimes days.
The job: Document the application
Most applications require some form of documentation and instructions of use.
Documentation may simply to catalogue the existence of the application and its
compliance with information security policies. It may also include terms of use and
detailed instructions to Users on what the application is for and how to use the
features of the application. Increasingly, User guidance is presented on-screen and
in the form of help videos which are easier for Users to learn.
User Acceptance Testing
The job: Have Users test the effectiveness and ease of use of the application
The nature of UAT testing for a situational application is one of further iteration
that extends ‗design‘ into a quasi-operational or alpha-test mode. Requests for
change by Users are formalized by Encanvas Casebook™ that logs all User requests
and posts them to the assigned business analyst.
Iteration and Optimization
The job: Make enhancements to the application in light of operational use
Each change request received through UAT is reviewed and must be accepted for
adoption by the project manager and business analyst prior to work being
commenced. This prevents unnecessary work being adopted before appropriate
levels of sponsorship have been gained.
General Release
The job: Accept the application for General Release
Applications are made available for GR once the Project Manager is satisfied that:
1. The outcomes specified in the Casebook have been met in full.
2. Change requests have been completed and no further change requests are
being received and the stakeholders believe the application has reached a
point where it is as good as it‘s ever going to get.
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The job: Release the application
The exercise of releasing an application is more one of administration (i.e.
changing the status of the project to GR in the Casebook) rather than making any
significant changes to the deployment as by this time users will already be using
the application.
Support, Monitor and Review Requirements
The job: Provide day-to-day User support on the application
Day-to-day support of Encanvas applications is made easier by administrators
having access to all Encanvas deployed applications from a single cockpit
(Encanvas Web Server Manager™). The use of a single platform removes many of
the complexities of the deployed environment. It also de-skills the support task so
that one person can support applications in their totality rather than having
multiple support experts managing discrete parts of an application. Ordinarily,
business analysts will be appointed to support specific processes or parts of a
business and will retain responsibility for supporting applications in their allocated
support areas. The ability to respond to support requests faster is aided by
Encanvas Version-Rollback™ (VR) technology that ensures deployed applications
and the Encanvas platform always remain on a consistent version (This obviates the
need to load a previous platform version before correcting a bug or application
discrepancy).
The job: Respond to new change requests and iterate the application
Even after deployment, Users will often make change requests for applications they
use. How these are actioned and delivered will vary according to the design of the
improvement and IT functions. Encanvas makes it easier to iterate applications
during their life as the user organization retains complete control over the
application and how it is used within their business. The economics of the platform
mean that organizations are not penalized for making changes to their
applications as needs change. Neither are they required to pay version upgrade
costs.
The job: Monitor and review requests for new applications
Encanvas encourages the development of new situational applications as needs
arise. This reduces the use of shadow data and shadow systems (self-served
applications normally developed by Users using SaaS tools or desktop applications
like Microsoft® Excel, PowerPoint, Word or Access) which are not only a risk to the
business, because of the risk of data loss and non-compliance through errors in
spreadsheets (etc.), but also prohibit the effective re-use of corporate information
assets.
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3. Advantages of Encanvas over Programming
Prior to technologies like Encanvas coming of age, the investors and stakeholders
of new applications were consigned to a distant advisory role: often seeing
theirnew applications for the first time as a fait accompliwhen presented by project
teams post-development. The consequences of this ‗back-room‘ programming
approach are well evidenced by the huge number of examples of failed IT projects
over the last decade and beyond.Even when agile development team structures are
employed, the issue of interpreting correctly the ‗best guess‘ of what stakeholders
feel they need in an application remains. All too often, the ‗best-guess‘ of
development teams soaks up all of the budget for a new applications development
leaving stakeholders to make-do with the outcome because the money runs out
before re-working can be completed.
Encanvas makes it possible for organizations to embed IT adaptation into
their change programmes, equipping business analysts with easier to master
applications design and deployment tools; equipping them to author applications
on-demand in a workshop environment. Encanvas overcomes the obstacles that
have previously stood in the way of engaging applications stakeholders in real-
time developments.
The iterative workshop design methods embodied in Encanvas AgileWorkshop
have proven to be more effective than programmatic development methods
because designers can act on stakeholder feedback as it arrives without incurring
high re-working costs. Each aspect of the applications design – from UI look-and-
feel to applications data models and logic – can be iterated with the same tool as
part of the same correction without having to involve a team of developers. This
results in applications that reach their market ten times faster than when
programmed and, thanks to technology innovations in the Encanvas Secure&Live
platform like Version-Rollback™ (VR) and Massively-Scaling-Architecture™ (MSA)
the company claims the resulting applications cost ten times less to run (when
calculated as a life-time cost).
The main applications development obstacles Encanvas overcomes are outlined on
the following pages.
De-skilling the authoring task to the power of 1
The expertise needed to author business applications is so diverse that few IT
professionals could hope to equip themselves with all of this know-how were they
using traditional tools and programmatic methods of authoring. There are, after-
allso many IT disciplines to master when authoring an application - content
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management, search, geo-mapping, database design, business intelligence and
analytics to name just a few. Add to this the additional complexity that many of
these technology disciplines are served by expert tools, each with their own
approaches and integration tooling, and it‘s clear why so many IT projects have
demanded teams of developers. With Encanvas, it has been proven time and again
that one business analyst can design and deliver enterprise applications with a
single tool-kit without need of expert tools or skills. This not only reduces the
number of ‗applications authoring heads‘ around the workshop table to one, it also
means the project management process is far less complex because ideas,
opinions and concepts don‘t need to be acquired and put down on to paper, then
transferred to a team of programmers working with a virtual blind-fold in a back-
office somewhere.
Speed of authoring
Traditional programming takes a very long time to complete. Even with the advent
of object based programming, the programming of new applications is measured
in weeks and months. To have a group of people in a workshop ‗waiting for
programmers to author code‘ would simply not work when developments take so
long.Encanvas enables business analysts to pre-author basic applications
prototypes including forms, data structures, user permissions structures and logic
(etc.) prior to workshops with stakeholders because it‘s possible to iterate on-
demand. Encanvas Casebook is used to acquire the base requirements of the
application to form the basis of the prototype. This means not all design work
needs to occur within a workshop.
Access to existing data required for re-use
The majority of information that business people use exists within back-office
systems – thought to be in the order of 60% of content - and increasingly on the
web (via web services and other formats like RSS and twitter). Encanvas includes
tooling to acquire data from disparate sources, and in varied file formats, and
makes information re-usable through its data mashup capabilities that include
information workflow management, extract, transform and load capabilities, data
connectors for most data silos and a data dictionary to assign friendly names to
data. Encanvas provides capabilities to also design new data marts and structures
including virtual views of data held in Microsoft® SQL Server™ databases.
Lack of Stakeholder familiarity in programming and data modelling
Most application users and investors are not familiar with how databases work or
what programming code produces. When they see screens littered with script they
feel disenfranchised and are likely to want to ‗leave the IT to the IT people‘ which
immediately creates a barrier to innovation.
Ability to achieve delivery of applications through workshops by providingthe
critical-mass of application features
Tool-kitslike Encanvas must offer the critical mass of componentsnecessary for
buildingthe diversity of applications organizations demand to run their processes;
to manage and analyse their data within the workshop context, Whenbusiness
analysts are required to repeatedly resort to programming, or the integration of
third party tools,they are effectively prevented from adopting thecollegiate
workshop style project model.Encanvas is differentiated by its complete tool-kit
with integral design elements fulfilling most common design requirements
including:
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Data entry forms supporting all popular form field formats including long-
txt, short-text, formatted field, Date, Numeric, Images etc.
Panels and conditional panels for managing groups of on-screen items
and building logic between panels for purposes of presentation and
control
Document and content management
Dashboard meters
2D and 3D reporting
Search and discovery
Data analytics with data tables and on-screen graphical presentation –
including interactive spreadsheet style data views
Social networking and URL sharing features
Geo-spatial intelligence and data visualization
Rich-text and text pop-up
Directory services integration
Email, video, twitter and social networking integration
HTML/JavaScript and C# programmable frames
Upload and download controls
It is unlikely that an application unable to offer such a rich level of functionality
would succeed in giving business analysts the tools they need to achieve outcomes
in a workshop environment.
Facilitatingan iterative applications development process
No application is ever truly right-first-time. Developments follow a path of trial
and error, with acknowledgement that new features and tools will suggest to
stakeholders smarter ways of working that may not have been in the original vision
of the application. As applications develop corrections are inevitable. With
Encanvas, the point-and-click nature of the design environment and its control
over all applications attributes (data source design and integration, user interface,
logic, design element properties etc.) mean that wholesale changes can be
instantly performed without having to incur large re-working overheads.
Speed of deployment (transitioning from initial design to live application)
Sometimes, applications delivery is halted while software infrastructure is installed
or a pilot system is deployed on a live server environment. This can require new
data structures to be created or new User Permissions structures to be formed.
The web portal administration cockpit of Encanvas - Web Server Manager™ -
removes these obstacles by parameterizing all of the Web Server settings without
requiring secondary processes to ‗organize‘ the operational server environment.
Reduced de-bugging, reduced time to resolution of bugs
When applications are authored using the ready-shaped design elements of
Encanvas, the number of ‗bugs‘ in deployed applications are reduced. Given that
the design elements are pre-coded and configured through parameters, the nature
of bugs is not one of ‗poor programming‘ but will have more to do with the way an
application has been deployed, how it ‗joins‘ components, sources data, manages
data integrity and applies logic. While each of these classes of software bug still
can result in an unsatisfactory User experience, the nature of the bug is more easily
identified and resolutions are easier to find through the simple English descriptions
of error logs produced by the Encanvas Web Server Manager™ administration
module.
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Removal of testing and tuning procedures
The platform of Encanvas is supplied with building blocks called design elements
that are pre-tested for browser compatibility and pre-optimized for browser
delivery. This means applications developed using Encanvas‘s native tools are
ready to be deployed without additional testing or tuning. This dramatically
reduces time-to-market and the traditional project overheads attached to
delivering new applications.
Reducing training/ documentation overheads through Rich-Internet Features
Applications developed using Rich Internet tools offer greater versatility in the way
pages are composed and presented to Users. Embracing AJAX technology means
that highly personalised data views can be built on-the-fly for Users based on their
preferences and User Group associations. Encanvas is a true Rich Internet
application that‘s been built for the Web. It provides a very rich, friendly and visual
User experience that dramatically reduces the need for help and documentation by
providing applications that are intuitive and employ tools like wizards to guide
Users through more complex processes.
The illustration below examples the business impact of adopting Encanvas CAAD
based on case studies compiled over the last 10 years.
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3. The Impact of Change on Programming
Encanvas®, and products like it, do not spell the end of programming as a skill or
professional: Like all applications Encanvas is built for a specific purpose and as
such has a limited ‗designed-in‘ scope of use.
In this case, the purpose of Encanvas® is to create business applications that serve
the long-tail of demand for applications that exists within business organizations;
largely driven by demands for process change and the forever changing needs of
knowledge workers. The overwhelming majority of these use cases call for
database-centric and analytical applications that gather, manage, share and report
on aspects of process or business. The nature of business today requires these
applications to be accessible from anywhere including mobile web browsers,
tablets and PCs. It is for this purpose that Encanvas® exists.
To serve this need, Encanvas® inherits a principle similar in concept to Lego® bricks.
The pre-formed design elements used in Encanvas® adopt common parameters
and interlocking mechanisms so they can be constructed in many millions of ways
and yet they still don‘t require programming. Given that business applications
tend to follow a common form, the use of this augmented tool-kit removes time,
risk and complexity from the authoring process.
The more sophisticated and predictable methods-based authoring process that
platforms like Encanvas provide, enable traditionally arduous and time consuming
repetitive programming tasks to be identified and progressively automated. In the
case of Encanvas®, the automation of forms creation, data linking, data
connectivity, repetitive mouse-click tasks, undo-redo actions etc. has reduced
application authoring activities from months, to weeks, to days and in some cases
hours and minutes.
The use of a building block style platform for applications authoring also means
that aspects of applications hygiene such as security management, tuning and
testing (particularly browser testing which has more lately become a huge burden
on development teams) can be pre-baked into the application platform, negating
the need for individual deployments to undergo such an extreme testing and
tuning cycle.
While programming will always have its place in the creation of expert systems, the
use of programming skills and tools to author applications that are variations on a
theme is a poor use of resources and only serves to add unnecessary complexity
and risk to process improvement initiatives.
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19. WHITE PAPER| Displacing the Programmers
5. Conclusion
The natural instinct of any professional in their field is to resist change when it
threatens to impact on the value of their skills and ultimately their future earning
potential. Computer programming is an expertise in relatively short supply and so
it would be perfectly understandable for experts in this field not to want to see the
methods used to create software applications change even if there are other
segments where programming will remain a required art.
But there is another factor at play here: Many IT professionals entered the
computing industry because of their passion for technology and their belief in the
possibilities that technology affords businesses and people by contributing to the
achievement of stakeholder goals and furthering the ambitions of people.
Experiences gained over the past decade of employing on-demand authoring tools
suggest that professionals that embrace this technology become more valued by
their peers and spend more of their time making IT do clever things, producing
outcomes rather than programming mundane repetitive features, overcoming
glitches, testing and tuning.There is a level of inevitabilityabout change; particularly
when the rewards of change are so significant to the organizationsthat buy IT
services as in this case.
We can therefore draw the following conclusions, that:
1. The need tooperate more effective and more adaptive information
systems at lower cost willcontinue to relentlessly drive commercial
enterprises towards new applications authoring techniques and tools that
will improve the quality of software, increase the likelihood of software
development project success while reducing transitional costs. These
techniques will inevitably (by unintended consequence rather than by
design) reduce or remove the role of programming for those areas of the
discipline that are repetitive in their nature, or in their outcome.
2. Encanvas has by now achieved a critical-mass of technical capabilities and
an enviable track-record of project successes that evidences, arguably for
the first time, that it is possible to create a tool-kit with suitable dexterity
and operational attributes to enable an agile workshop authoring process.
3. Once the rewards of this step-change in software delivery performance
become more known and better measured, the pace of adoption in the IT
industry is likely to step up several gears – and those professionals with a
deeper appreciation of the methods and tools in play are likely to find
their skills in high demand.
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20. WHITE PAPER| Displacing the Programmers
Contact information
About the Author
Previously holding a series of Sales and Marketing Management and Directorship
positions in the European IT industry, in 2002 Ian Tomlin co-founded the
International Management Consultancy NDMC Ltd whose portfolio of clients
includes some of the world‘s largest public and private sector organizations.
With Nick Lawrie he co-authored ‗Agilization‘, a guide to regenerating
competitiveness for Western World companies. Ian Tomlin has authored several
other business books and hundreds of articles on business strategy, IT and
organizational design including ‗Cloud Coffee House‘, a guide to the impact of
cloud social networking on business and ‗Social Operating Systems‘, an exploration
into the next generation of enterprise computing platform.
About NDMC Ltd
NDMC is a management consultancy that specializes in helping organizations to
establish stretch strategies and build organizations with the means to become
serial stretchers. We help organizations to create customer value and engineer a
step-change in performance using a blend of methods and tools that create agility
in operational capabilities. For further information please visitwww.ndmc.uk.com.
NDMC Ltd
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© 2012NDMC Ltd 20