Blueprint Launches Industry's First Business Analyst Workbench
Blueprint Requirements Center 2009 delivers modular solution built to facilitate requirements lifecycle.
June 9, 2008, Toronto, ON — Blueprint, the global leader in requirements solutions for software business analysts, today unveiled Blueprint Requirements Center 2009, the first software solution designed for all phases of the requirements definition lifecycle.
With Requirements Center 2009, Blueprint delivers four groundbreaking modules purpose built to provide business analyst teams the capability to optimize the requirements definition practices of requirements elicitation, elaboration, validation, and acceptance. All modules are tightly integrated with the Blueprint Definition Server for enterprise-wide collaboration and global deployment.
"Recent industry studies show that modern software projects on average spend 40 percent of their effort on rework, and as a result, over 60% of software projects overrun budgets, miss schedules and substantially reduce delivered functionality," said Matthew Morgan, Blueprint's Chief Marketing Officer. "Because software business analysts are playing an increasingly critical role in the success of modern-day IT projects, they need tools like Requirements Center 2009 to be able to deliver clear requirements that precisely communicate the business need to development teams around the world.
"Blueprint Requirements Center 2009 is a breakthrough release, because its four purpose-built modules are designed to match precisely the processes that business analysts now follow in software requirements definition," Morgan added.
Business Analyst Practices set Product Direction
As part of the definition and design of Blueprint Requirements Center 2009, the Blueprint product team conducted customer and industry research to identify the needs of the business analyst as part of the requirements definition process.
Proprietary research performed during the definition of Blueprint Requirements Center 2009 indicated that:
- More than 90 percent of the business analysts surveyed found a clear "lack of enterprise software solutions" that facilitated the Requirements Elicitation process.
- More than 85 percent of the analysts surveyed indicated that the Requirements Acceptance and Documentation process is inefficient because of reliance on manually generated requirements documents.
- Only 80 percent of business analysts felt that the business was clearly communicating with IT teams through the written English language alone.
"The business analyst is fast becoming the primary owner of the business needs of any IT software project," said Theresa Lanowitz, CEO of Voke Inc. "Voke's independent research clearly demonstrates that software project success traces directly back to the clarity and the quality of the requirements articulation in the early stages of the lifecycle. Visually eliciting, elaborating, validating, and describing requirements will optimize the business analysis process for any modern IT team."
As part of Blueprint Requirements Center 2009, the new definition lifecycle modules include:
- Requirements Elicitation: The new Requirements Elicitation module provides a customizable interface which allows business analyst teams to quickly capture initial requirements concepts in early interfaces with the Line of Business. Analyst teams can create lists of functional, security, performance, scope, and interface requirements through keyboard short-cuts and quick-attachments.
- Requirements Elaboration: Once requirements concepts are captured, business analyst teams can use the new Requirements Elaboration module to describe requirements in precise language using visual mockups, use-cases, data, business rules, and visual wire-frames.
- Requirements Validation: Blueprint's new Requirements Validation module ensures requirements are correct, are unambiguous, and are feasible by performing visual simulations and capturing feedback through integrated discussion threads.
- Requirements Acceptance: Blueprint's new Requirements Acceptance module delivers the industry's first fully customizable requirements document generator which can produce complete business requirements documents as well as ALM assets into major lifecycle solutions. Blueprint also offers packaged configurations for the acceptance module that follow popular industry software requirements standards such as IEEE, RUP, Volare, and the IIBA™ BABOK™.
Other enhancements to Blueprint Requirements Center 2009 include superior bi-directional traceability for all requirements assets, an integrated glossary, and the industry's best integration with HP Quality Center.
"OmniComm creates electronic data capture (EDC) software for companies that conduct clinical trial research. In order to produce a superior deliverable for our clients, we need to unite our clinical and software developers expertise so that they speak the same language as they create new and better versions of our product," said Vincent Raaijmakers, Senior Vice President of Technology at OmniComm Systems, Inc. "Blueprint provides the most comprehensive approach to requirements that translates our clinical vision into a robust simulation that the software engineer can easily interpret and build upon."
Existing Blueprint customers leveraging previous versions of Blueprint Requirements Center qualify for an upgrade to Blueprint Requirements Center 2009 as part of their maintenance agreement. Blueprint Requirements Center 2009 is available immediately.
Blueprint will be hosting a weekly webinar series on Blueprint Requirements Center 2009. Registration for the webinar can be completed online at http://www.blueprintsys.com/webinar.php
About Blueprint
Blueprint aligns business and IT teams by delivering the industry's leading requirements suite designed specifically for the business analyst. Blueprint solutions empower analyst teams to eliminate requirements misunderstanding by capturing, validating, and delivering precise business requirements to local or distributed IT application project teams. Blueprint's product line functions as a collaborative system for the requirements lifecycle, including requirements elicitation, elaboration, validation, and acceptance. Blueprint is a global provider, with presence in the United States, Canada, and in Europe. For more information on Blueprint, visit http://www.blueprintsys.com.
