Software Company Example

Although the IEMP is abstract and thus applicable to nearly every system, the further example will focus on a “Software Company”.

 

Initial Agreements

The customer decides that the public support forum can be used for questions subjecting the product. Conversation subjecting the company are posted to an internal group of people. Private conversation (written or spoken) is not allowed.

 

Visitor vs. website (1 day)

An analyst enters the company website (= “a system”) without knowing much about it – initially as an simple visitor to evaluate if the website can raise his intrest. In parallel, he enters several websites of the competition.

This first phase is mostly about “the first impression” which e.g. an evaluator gets, when opening multiple browser windows (one for each vendor).

Suggested changes could be e.g. the modification of the main page and the “About Us” section of a website.

 

Intressent vs. website, pre-sales (1 week)

[The main difference to a simple website-usability-analysis is seen here: this step is essentially a Product Description SWOT Analysis. ]

In the next step, the analyst becomes an intresent – reading the information about the products (descriptions, specifications, technical whitepapers, marketing material etc.) and downloading further information (like brochures) and the evaluation-versions of the product. In parallel, the analyst applies the same task to the websites of the competition. He requests missing details via written conversation (from both, customer and competition).

Suggestions can contain text (to be published by the webteam) which gives emphasis on strengths&opportunities, whilst reducing the negative impressions caused by weaknesses&threats.

The best reduction of detected Weaknesses&Threats is their elimination – which is suggested to the product-management.

Note: the product itself is not yet evaluated. Only the public available descriptions are used.

 

Customer vs. Support, Product

Whilst using the evaluation versions of the products, the analyst evaluates the provided support (website sections, forums, ticket-system, etc.). Optionally, this step can be extended to a full product evaluation, which is essentially a SWOT analysis applied to the product. Competitions Products are evaluated as far as needed, too.

Again, the written conversation is a central part of the results. Again, suggestions try to reduce weaknesses&threats and to give emphasis on strengths&opportunities.

 

Team-Member vs. Project-Entry, Project

The analyst evaluates and applies a SWOT analysis to the project resources. This starts with the process of becoming a team-member (e.g. retrieve and install collaboration software etc.). Conversation with several positions (team-members, team-lead, product-management) clarifies questions, which the analyst writes down as suggestions for the creation / modification of the project documentation.

Whilst actively participating within the development (limited time), suggestions are given and partly executed (e.g. modularize source-codes, tool-introduction).

Again, comparative systems are taken in account (as far as possible / neccessary). The existent results of several large-scale project evaluations are used.

 

Leadership vs. Competition, Partners

The companies CEO can focus full on his daily business, while the analyst fulfills the evaluation. Detected opportunities / threats (which result out of the previous evaluation steps) are processed, whilst using the gained domain-knowledge.

 

Supervision

After the work has finished, the customer decides to continue with a supervision. The analyst will invest around 4 hours per week to visit the project, verifying the continuation of the suggested changes.