The MCF Enterprise Development Team just returned from a week of on-site development with the real-estate department of a major retailer.  To summarize the week's results, we scheduled a presentation to the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the various constituent groups of the project. After the presentation, what struck us most was a comment by the primary project benefactor. He was exited and confident of success because "unlike the previous failed attempts, this time around it was really different."

So, what is this difference?

1. Real results are being delivered with substantially less effort.

It easy to quantify the difference in scale of our project versus previous attempts.  The last time our client attempted the project they spent nearly $2mm and failed.  Leveraging the rapid development capabilities of QuickBase and MCF's Parallel Development Methodology (PDM) our expected project cost is about 10% of the initial failed attempt.

What this means for the client is that they get the same benefit but with substantially less organizational effort (i.e. they aren't spending hundreds or thousands of hours of internal effort defining and managing the project).  This equates to rapid deployment time and increased likelihood of project success.

2. The solution is designed to meet the client's needs exactly.

The biggest complaint we heard from the client about past failures was that they had to make too many compromises . . . the technology solution could not do what they wanted.  We find no greater pleasure than seeing the looks of amazement of our clients' faces when we tell them that they are going to get exactly what they want.

At the project summary meeting this was precisely the message that the project benefactor's conveyed, that they felt very positive about the project because we weren't using the technology to re-invent how they work, but rather using the technology to better enable what they already do.  A key factor of PDM is that it is designed to model technology solutions to the client environment and not impose unnecessary change.

3. The process is collaborative and dynamic.

One of the most exciting aspects of our week-long development session is that our client did most of the work themselves.  Fortunately their organization recognized the importance of being fully committed to the project and dedicated ample resources to assuring success.  We spent time initially instructing all participants about the PDM development model and then dove right in working alongside the client to build the application.

In the end, this led to two important outcomes.  First, as a group we were able to quickly make decisions needed to address the application design, and second, we were able to assure that a core of client users have substantial hands-on experience and deep knowledge of the application functionality long before it is planned for wide release.

Time and time again we are seeing that the combination of QuickBase rapid development technology and Parallel Development Methodology are creating practically magical improvements in the success of business process technology projects.