VisibleThread and Strata Software Announce Services Partnership

DUBLIN, IRELAND, May 12th, 2009 -VisibleThread, a leading tools vendor for IT projects, announces a strategic partnership with Strata Software, a specialist provider of training and consultancy aimed at the successful adoption of software best practices. Strata will be responsible for delivering training and consulting for VisibleThread’s Tooling and service offerings in the UK.

“Strata’s experience implementing software ‘best practices’ within the industry makes them an ideal partner for VisibleThread,” said Fergal McGovern, VisibleThread CEO. “Strata have helped companies adopt tools and methodologies that improve software delivery and make a difference to companies’ bottom lines. We have been working closely with John and his team for the last year and this agreement is the culmination of our collective long-term goal of reducing IT project failure rates.”

“Most companies have no standards, and if they do have standards they have no good way of enforcing them.” said John Cheesman, founder, Strata Software. “Having an automatic check against existing documentation with VisibleThread is a key ‘win’ for us when introducing best practice. This is one of the unique benefits we get from leveraging VisibleThread with our clients.”

The VisibleThread on-demand/on-premise solution is the first of its kind that uses industry Best Practice to analyze MS Word documents for gaps and inconsistencies in ‘real-time’. Using a series of web based ‘dashboards’ and MS Word ‘Add-ins’, VisibleThread fits seamlessly into any IT process approach (iterative or waterfall), dramatically raising document visibility,instantly highlighting ‘at risk’ and ‘on track’ projects.

VisibleThread pinpoints risk levels for all concerned stakeholders including VP/CIO, Project/Program Managers, Business Analysts and QA/Test Leads.

“The approach taken by VisibleThread means that best practice for business analysis can now be introduced incrementally with low overheads. Most organizations would take considerable time and money to be able to improve their internal processes without VisibleThread.” said George Ntinolazos, Principal Consultant, Strata Software. “VisibleThread with it’s facility to adopt and customize Best Practice works as a ‘consultant in a box’”

For more information about VisibleThread, visit www.visiblethread.com.

About VisibleThread

VisibleThread (www.visiblethread.com) is a software product company delivering solutions that dramatically cut IT project waste for medium / large enterprises, government, system integrators and ISVs (Independent Software Vendors).

Today, despite sophisticated tooling, 90% of IT organizations still use Microsoft Word (‘The New Business Analyst’ – Forrester Research, April 2008) as the primary tool for business analysis activities. Understanding whether these documents are ‘fit for purpose’ is a highly manual, time consuming and error prone process.

The VisibleThread on-demand/on-premise solution is the first of its kind that uses industry Best Practice to analyze MS Word documents for gaps and inconsistencies in ‘real-time’. Using a series of web based ‘dashboards’ and MS Word ‘Add-ins’, VisibleThread fits seamlessly into any IT process approach (iterative or waterfall), dramatically raising document visibility, instantly highlighting ‘at risk’ and ‘on track’ projects. VisibleThread pinpoints risk levels for all concerned stakeholders including VP/CIO, Project/Program Managers, Business Analysts and QA/Test Leads.

About Strata Software

Strata Software (www.stratasoftware.com) is a leading provider of Requirements Definition and Management services and solutions. With an average of 20 years experience in the field, our consultants specialise in requirements-driven improvement and optimisation of application lifecycle processes. We establish customer-oriented best-practice in requirements definition and management, tool usage and project lifecycle integration, providing measurable business value in aligning software solutions to business requirements.

For further press information contact: Media Relations: pr@visiblethread.com

VisibleThread for IT

2:48 minutes
This summary overview shows the business case for using VisibleThread for IT programs. It shows why up to 42% of IT project cost can be attributed to defective documentation and demonstrates how VisibleThread addresses this large business issue.

Red-flagging Bad Language

3:47 minutes
There are some words/phrases that you should avoid in a proposal. This short video shows how VisibleThread scans and red-flags 'bad language' in your RFP Responses.

Using Discovery to spot Gaps

2:28 minutes
Identification of key concepts in issued documents (RFP etc.) helps align the language of the response volumes. Discovery in VisibleThread can uncover mismatches and lack of alignment between issuer and response docs to support reviews and underpin a winning bid.

Validating Win Theme Language

4:43 minutes
Win themes articulate business differentiation. Too often, with multiple contributors and authors, it is hard to keep theme language consistent.

Here we see how VisibleThread validates response docs against win themes by:

Scanning for Compliance Requirements

4:30 minutes
Proposal Managers have to manually scan issued documents or pdfs to spot requirements prefaced with 'shall', 'must' etc. and track them in spreadsheets. This demo shows an 'obligation scan' run against a SOW. All instances of 'will', 'must', 'shall' are identified. It concludes by generating a first pass of an Excel Compliance Matrix.

Collaborations and Team Reviews with
Discussions

5:31 minutes
Managing inputs from multiple contributors and conducting efficient team reviews is critical to successful outcomes. This demo shows how VisibleThread supports collaboration using web based discussions.

Integrating with MS SharePoint

2:36 minutes
VisibleThread integrates seamlessly with MS SharePoint using an intuitive export/import capability. This short demo shows how the integration works in practical terms. We cover:

Plain Language Analysis

4:11 minutes
Plain Language Analysis drives clear documentation. This demo outlines how VisibleThread can identify long sentences, passive langauge and facilitate plain langauge audits.