The reinsurance business involves extremely complex, logic-driven processes that are facilitated mainly by software applications. These applications provide an opportunity for reinsurance companies to differentiate themselves. Nothing is more frustrating than missing great business opportunities because IT departments can’t respond fast enough, or existing systems are too difficult to modify.

Adding an agile layer on top of these rigid systems offers COOs and CIOs at reinsurance companies the opportunity to react quickly without employing large teams of developers. We call this layer a “change layer” because it enables rapid changes that offer immediate business value on top of an otherwise inflexible core system.

Inefficient manual process? Automate it. Disparate systems slowing you down? Connect them. Underwriters doing arduous tasks? It’s called a microflow; and it’s a logic-based process flow. Have a novel idea that will win more business, but no IT horsepower to implement it? That’s what your change layer is for. It allows you to build even the most complex applications 10x faster, with minimal input from IT.

Most of these applications are custom portals, and while you might think those two words equate to a whole lot of time and money, your change layer gives you the ability to ensure a rapid and significant ROI. The key here is that you don’t need to employ an army of developers to implement a new portal.

Most of the work can be done by business people, and in our opinion, it should be. They are the ones who know the problem and are likely to have an idea for a solution. We worked with Arch Re to help them get into the Program business by building a custom application that provides a more efficient mechanism for clients to report the risks subject to the contract. Click here to read the case study.

Here’s what to do to fix the glitches in your site within five minutes:

1. Get a sprintr account if you haven’t already
2. Paste a little code snippet in your head tag (like you -or your webmaster- did for Google Analytics)
3. Put the ID of a specific ‘website’ sprintr project into the code
4. Tweak the code: You can tweak the code to enable attachments, detect usernames and many more options to collect the tightest metadata possible

I’ll bet the minute you start using the widget you will get suggestions for improvements you could never think about for yourself. We use it for Mendix.com as well and within days we had great input…

• “Where can I find the Mendix Whitepaper” (so we made it very apparent on the product page now)
• “Your email states the event is on date X, while the site states the event is on date Y.”
• “Just finished watching the video on SAP integration, do you have one like that for Microsoft Dynamics?”

The feedback widget makes Sprintr different than any other project management tool out there. For the first time, you and your end users can collaborate in real time through your website or application.

1. Everyone Knows Everything

This might scare some of you, but having watched a few projects go awry when certain stakeholders are privy to specific requirements, I can’t emphasize the value of transparency enough. When user stories are submitted, every project member has the opportunity to comment on or modify them, and everyone is aware of changing requirements.

2. Sequence By Priority

There’s no need to lecture you about the cold hard value of scrum – the development methodology that Sprintr supports – but by laying out your user stories (requirements) in priority order and time boxing them into deliverable releases, you can rest assure that the requirements with the highest ROI will be delivered first. In Sprintr, you can even drag and drop user stories into priority order to keep your backlog in check.

3. Immediate Feedback Loops

Sprintr has a great feedback mechanism. You just put a simple widget in your application or website, and end users or testers can submit ideas, issues, or questions from within the application. All you need to do is go through these tickets and turn the appropriate ones into new user stories. Suddenly you have a feedback cycle that enhances requirement management wrapped up in a spiffy little web app.

4. Cloud Connected Scrum

Distributed project teams deal with a host of issues that keep business analysts from achieving their goals. You have multiple time zones, people with different technical backgrounds and work ethics, all of which amplify the miscommunication and inefficiency that typically accompany a complex software project. Sprintr alleviates these issues by centralizing all communication and project management processes in a cloud application.

5. Social Activity Streams

Sprintr is like Facebook, except more productive. The sales guy who coined this declaration was referring to the social facets of Sprintr – the Company Wall, the Project Wall, the daily updates, and the comment threads. These components make Sprintr a collaboration space without any physical limitations – no product owner calls, no whiteboards, and no scheduled meeting times.

As you can see, business analysts truly have the most to gain from Sprintr. Sure, developers can plan out sprints and milestones, and business users can submit user stories and feedback – but you’re the one who gets to sit back and watch the magic happen. You are no longer “over-documenting” requirements ahead of time, hoping that IT has received the input clearly and will provide the output as requested. You have a tool to manage this heavily-trafficked intersection, and virtually guarantee that projects are completed on time and within budget.

For those of you interested in learning more, watch this webinar to learn how Mendix and Sprintr eliminate the risk of project failure.

First let’s see the top 5 of agonies for employees:

• Poor software (either poor performing, GUI or functionality)
• Elbowing colleagues to get on top
• Bad ambiance at the office
• Colleagues who always come in late
• Loud people in the office.

It’s bizarre to see that the number one agony is the one that can be resolved in the most tangible way: just by listening. Instead of having to take management measures or expensive H&R campaigns to change people’s behavior. All that is needed is a simple solution to give the end user a voice; to engage them in actively improving the tools they need to succeed in their day to day work. This simple solution for your organization materializes in a button that comes with Sprintr: The Feedback Button.

I’ll bet the minute you start collecting feedback and the first bugs or design issues have been resolved, your end users feel they have a voice and are in control. Perhaps the ROI of all the fixes is so big your company can actually start those expensive H&R campaign to nail the other agonies as well.

Somewhere just after Thanksgiving everyone in my family receives a kind reminder from my aunt asking us to fill out her wonderful Excel spreadsheet decorated with colored columns with our names and what we plan on bringing. Sure enough every year my wife and I fill the spreadsheet out with something only to have it returned to us saying, “Your cousin has already signed up for bringing this.” or “We don’t need that this year.”, now this is all well and good but it got me to thinking. I work with an application development platform every day that I know I am going to explain the wonders of to one of these people at this party. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier for my poor aunt to have a web application?

So with a few clicks of the mouse I was off, I made a data model that included all of two entities (person and item), I made an association so that a person could belong to multiple items, and then I made three forms. About fifteen minutes later I had myself a nice little application, I then stole the styling package from an existing application and threw it into my project folder. My next step was Microsoft Word where I made this little gem:

I then went into the style and changed my customer’s logo to this image and I was ready! With five more clicks I had my application in the cloud. I’ve since added some Excel import functionality (I’d hate to see my aunt’s hard work go to waste) and Google maps so everyone knows how to get to the party. All in all in under an hour I eliminated many hours of effort for my aunt. Plus now I have a basis to tell everyone what I do. Now I just need to figure out how to explain to people that it’s not just Christmas party planning applications that I build…

One of the more notable benefits of Mendix 3.1 is that merging has been made more intuitive and powerful. You can now see which revisions have been merged before, and revert deleted documents, folders and modules, allowing seamless collaboration within a project team.

Another big step forward with Mendix 3.1 is error messaging and sanity checks. We now allow you (and us) to diagnose problems earlier and more specifically, making user feedback even more actionable for development teams. We are fully aware that the dialogue between an end user and a project team should be as flawless as possible.

Also important to note is that version numbering has changed and 3.1.0 is a minor release. You can read our tech-tip blog post to learn how we number our versions from now on.

There is a lot more included in this release. Check out the release notes in the Support Portal for a complete overview.

Yesterday Atos CEO Thierry Breton announced he will ban all internal email from the work floor within 18 months by stating: “It is not normal that some of our fellow employees spend hours in the evening dealing with their emails. Email is no longer the appropriate communication tool.”

Not to toot my own horn (well maybe just a bit) but at Mendix we have been collaborating, communicating for a long time now using Sprintr. We’ve already noticed many benefits upon adopting the solution, which enables better conversation but also enhances our day to day work life.

Sprintr is of course two things: a) a feedback mechanism aligning what the business truly wants with what developers think the business wants and b) an enterprise collaboration tool with activity streams (company and project wall’s) and agile project management features.

Let’s zoom in on the day to day benefits of using Sprintr for enterprises like Atos. Here are three improvements that happened when Sprintr was introduced to our various global offices:

1. Mr Breton is right! No more overloaded inbox! Incoming mail has been reduced immensely. No more sales people mailing their wins all the time and receiving 50 congratulations messages afterwards, just one post (and lots of comments and ‘likes’) on Sprintr. No more endless back and forth emailing about the next Mendix company outing and being CC-ed with suggestions (ranging from go-karting to base-jumping), one poll on sprintr and we were done deciding.
2. Finding documents: No more need to call my CEO (CEO’s seem to be quite busy) 15 times to ask if he will send me the slides of his last talk at the Mendix Essentials. Or where was that campaign planning my manager send me last month? Have I mentioned how convenient it is to have everything in a cloud called Sprintr?
3. Increase synergy: You don’t email the whole company when you are working on a super-cool Proof of Concept, but people have been posting these activities on Sprintr, resulting in colleagues sharing their building blocks, themes and widgets. By posting simple status updates people become more aware of each others activities and offer a helping hand.

Managing Director of Benelux Arno Rood Introducing Mendix (in Dutch):

Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about Mendix:

Questions by the audience:

Please make an appointment with our Sales Team if you have in depth questions about Mendix:

Mendix Essentials review

As our seats for the Mendix Essentials tend to run out fast, make sure to sign up quickly for the next edition on january 27.