Who Should Design It?
Imagine it, a corporate software solution to transform your company and stomp the competition. How do you design that? Who should design it?

Who Has the Clearest Vision?
Who has the clearest vision of your company’s future? Is it your IT department?  It’s you and your senior management team. Your IT guys just talk about bits and bytes. You talk about your company all the time. You and your management team have the vision. You know exactly where you want to take your company.

If You Can See It, You Can Build It
As in all creative endeavors, if you can see it, you can build it. It’s no different with software. The vision is the key. Capture that vision and improve on it. It all begins in the “Rubber Room”.

It All Begins in the Rubber Room
My first customer, way back in 1970, was Pilot Life Insurance Company in Greensborough North Carolina. They needed a life insurance illustration system. I quoted a fixed price, for any illustration system they could imagine, and until it was in production, and they liked it, they wouldn’t owe me a thing.

Imagine the Perfect Solution, Without Limit
So, we locked ourselves in a boardroom for a couple of days. They were paying for an illustration system, and whatever they wanted was what I wanted to deliver. My first job was to help them envision their perfect solution, without limitation. I didn’t want to just get requirements; I wanted them to imagine a solution that would make a real difference for them.

That’s Why I Call it the Rubber Room
They would make a suggestion and I would say, “Great idea, but how can we make it even better? Don’t limit yourself to just what you think is possible.” Sometime during the second day, the actuary Bob Willett spoke up in his big southern drawl and said, “Art, I feel like I’m in a rubber room. Everything we ask for, you say we can do.”  That’s such a great description of the environment I wanted to create, I’ve been calling it that ever since.

The Rubber Room Meeting
You don’t know what IT can do for you and they don’t know what you need. I guarantee, if you can articulate your vision, it can be built. So ask for everything you can possibly imagine would help your company, even if you think it can’t be done.

What Magic Will Triple Results?
Gather senior management in the Rubber Room to play make believe.  Get out of reality and into an imaginary world where anything is possible. Your business plans call for results. What if they had to triple those results? They would probably need magic. Great, what magic?

And Don’t Forget Your Customer
What about your customers? What will make them love doing business with you? When they buy your products, what problem do they solve? How could you solve it better? How can you make your customer’s life easier? How can you make it painless for them to do business with you? It doesn’t matter if the suggestion is difficult or even impossible. This is the “Rubber Rom” anything is possible.

Anything is Possible, Just Snap your Fingers
What if you don’t have the budget? What if you need a mountain of new software? Forget about it! ANYTHING is possible. All you have to do is snap your fingers.You will learn a lot. Amazing ideas will just plop out on the table. One idea will lead to an even better idea. A crescendo of creativity will capture the imagination of your team, electricity in the room.

What You Will Discover
There is no way to predict the discoveries. It is predictable you will make many.

The Power of Information
You will discover things about your information flow:

• Jobs that exist only to relay information and can be eliminated
• Ways to alter products for increased sales
• Markets you didn’t even know existed

Your Perfect Solution is Crystal Clear
The most difficult part of creating an innovative solution is the vision. This exercise makes the vision crystal-clear. If you can see it, you can build it!

Your Competition Will Not Have This, But Will Wish They Did.
Document this vision. Unlike traditional documentation, it reads like a story, your story, in language that anyone can understand — no technical jargon, a word story that paints the vision. No explanation of how anything is to be done; only what the solution will do. Be sure to include every desire, even if you think it impossible. See Sample Vision Statement

The Design Process Continues Until the Solution is Complete
Now you have the perfect solution to accelerate corporate results and triple profits. Design is not finished though, it continues all the way through the creation process and even through the testing process.

We Have Been Doing this Wrong for 40 Years
Software design; has been strangled for 40 years. We act like a bunch of engineers and architects documenting every detail to the fraction of an inch before any work begins.

Our Only Limitation is Our Imagination
For a window in a building, that’s required, there is only one right way. And it must be precisely documented before any work begins. We’re not doing buildings. A software window doesn’t even have to be a window. It can take any form we can imagine is helpful. It can even work differently depending on who is using it. In software design, imagination is our only limitation. We must maximize imagination throughout the entire process.

Your Solution Evolves Until it’s Perfect
When software is done right, it’s more like decorating a room than building one. When decorating, we try different combinations, colours and placements. Some we like, some we don’t. It evolves. Eventually it’s perfect; further change would just detract.  That’s how we know we’re done. That’s precisely how software should be done. It’s not a construction job; it’s a decorating job.With the vision story, the development team knows what the software will do. They just need to figure out how.

In Small Steps Called Prototypes
They collaborate and try alternatives. Some work, some don’t. Software is done in small steps called prototypes, for all to see and try, including you and your senior management team. One prototype will generate even better ideas for the next prototype.

Until it Becomes Your Financial Home Run
The solution is an accumulation of good ideas that you, your management team, and your development team decide to keep, ideas that have all improved upon the original vision. Until everyone likes the way the room is decorated.That’s how you design a solution and know up front it’s a financial home run.

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