Global System Rollouts – Focus on System Integration Challenges

Bipin_ShahIn this interview, I talk with Bipin Shah, President and CEO of Kovair Software, about the challenges and lessons learned integrating a mix of tools to provide an integrated Software Development and IT Lifecycle Management environment for one of the top ten global IT Companies.

Kovair’s customer, a global leader in delivering technology solutions to companies throughout the world, had customers and Project Managers in the U.S and development teams in India, China, and other countries.

The customer was using a mix of standard tools from different vendors and some home grown tools to support individual phases of Software Development and IT Management lifecycle. These tools were not well connected with each other and the information flow between the tools is mostly manual lacking coordination and synchronization.

The customer was finding it extremely difficult to share information between different lifecycle solutions, trace items through phases, propagate changes through phases, establish end-to-end automated lifecycle process, enforce consistent project management controls across phases, and gain total visibility into the status and progress of development and IT projects.

Kovair’s solution integrated an internal tool for Business Modeling, IBM Requisite Pro for Requirements Management, IBM Rose for Analysis & Design, IBM Test Manager for Test Management and an internal tool for central Project Management and Tracking.

kovair_omnibus

The Interview

Listen now:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Right click here to download the MP3

I asked Bipin the following:

  • Can you give us a brief background/overview of the project?
  • What were the business drivers for the project?
  • What was the solution or the technology of the project and why it was selected?
  • Can you give us more details about the project
  • What was your overall methodology/approach you followed to rollout the solution successfully to multiple counties?
  • How did you approach gathering requirements and defining scope of the project?
  • How did you handle testing the solution before launch?
  • What was your approach to training end users and people who will support the system?
  • What integration issues did you face? Did you find any challenges getting support from vendors the solution needed to integrate
  • What were the non-technical challenges you faced such as resistance to change?
  • What were the lessons learned from this global rollout?

About Bipin Shah:

After a varied career at Fairchild Semiconductor where he held Engineering, Manufacturing and Business Unit Management responsibility, Bipin joined Altera Corporation, a leading manufacturer of programmable logic devices at its early inception in 1984. As a member of Altera’s executive management team, he held positions of VP, Operations and President of Altera Japan, and was operationally responsible for revenue growth from zero to over $500 million run rate in 1994, and participated in Altera’s IPO in 1989. From 1997 to 1999, Bipin served as President and CEO of a chip startup Invox Technology, whose multi-level Flash memory technology was acquired by SanDisk Corporation. Between the years 2000 and 2005, Bipin was a co-founder and general partner of an early stage venture investment fund, INC3 Ventures based in Silicon Valley.

Bipin currently serves on the Boards of three start-up companies, and has previously served on the Boards of more than ten venture capital backed companies. Bipin holds a MS degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a BEE (Honors) from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.

About Kovair:

Kovair provides solutions for Application Lifecycle Management- ALM and IT Service Management ITSM solutions, supporting globally distributed multi-site application development and services. Its flagship products, The ALM Studio and the ITSM Studio are web based configurable products with built in workflow and integration framework that offer a set of integrated tools and processes for managing the entire IT lifecycle.

For more information, please visit www.kovair.com

Listen now:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Right click here to download the MP3

Credits…

Our opening and closing theme song is music by the wonderful Paul Hardcastle and www.paulhardcastle.com

2 Responses to Global System Rollouts – Focus on System Integration Challenges
  1. […] Aidane interviews Bipin Shah, CEO of Kovair Software, about their experience integrating several tools to provide a […]

  2. Kovair Blog for Year End 2010 |
    December 7, 2010 | 6:35 am

    […] In this blog, instead of writing something myself, I would like to provide a link to an interview of mine that was conducted by Samad Aidane of Guerilla Project Management http://www.Guerillaprojectmanagement.com.  In this interview Samad focused on questions about how Kovair executed a very large 14 tools integration project for Applications Lifecycle Management – ALM at a very large Global IT Services Company that is now in production with about 6,000 developers working from at least four different locations of this company on a totally web based collaborative environment!  Please follow the link below of the recorded interview  in a Q&A format http://www.guerrillaprojectmanagement.com/global-system-rollouts-focus-on-system-integration-challen… […]

Global System Rollouts – Focus on System Integration Challenges

Bipin_ShahIn this interview, I talk with Bipin Shah, President and CEO of Kovair Software, about the challenges and lessons learned integrating a mix of tools to provide an integrated Software Development and IT Lifecycle Management environment for one of the top ten global IT Companies.

Kovair’s customer, a global leader in delivering technology solutions to companies throughout the world, had customers and Project Managers in the U.S and development teams in India, China, and other countries.

The customer was using a mix of standard tools from different vendors and some home grown tools to support individual phases of Software Development and IT Management lifecycle. These tools were not well connected with each other and the information flow between the tools is mostly manual lacking coordination and synchronization.

The customer was finding it extremely difficult to share information between different lifecycle solutions, trace items through phases, propagate changes through phases, establish end-to-end automated lifecycle process, enforce consistent project management controls across phases, and gain total visibility into the status and progress of development and IT projects.

Kovair’s solution integrated an internal tool for Business Modeling, IBM Requisite Pro for Requirements Management, IBM Rose for Analysis & Design, IBM Test Manager for Test Management and an internal tool for central Project Management and Tracking.

kovair_omnibus

The Interview

Listen now:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Right click here to download the MP3

I asked Bipin the following:

  • Can you give us a brief background/overview of the project?
  • What were the business drivers for the project?
  • What was the solution or the technology of the project and why it was selected?
  • Can you give us more details about the project
  • What was your overall methodology/approach you followed to rollout the solution successfully to multiple counties?
  • How did you approach gathering requirements and defining scope of the project?
  • How did you handle testing the solution before launch?
  • What was your approach to training end users and people who will support the system?
  • What integration issues did you face? Did you find any challenges getting support from vendors the solution needed to integrate
  • What were the non-technical challenges you faced such as resistance to change?
  • What were the lessons learned from this global rollout?

About Bipin Shah:

After a varied career at Fairchild Semiconductor where he held Engineering, Manufacturing and Business Unit Management responsibility, Bipin joined Altera Corporation, a leading manufacturer of programmable logic devices at its early inception in 1984. As a member of Altera’s executive management team, he held positions of VP, Operations and President of Altera Japan, and was operationally responsible for revenue growth from zero to over $500 million run rate in 1994, and participated in Altera’s IPO in 1989. From 1997 to 1999, Bipin served as President and CEO of a chip startup Invox Technology, whose multi-level Flash memory technology was acquired by SanDisk Corporation. Between the years 2000 and 2005, Bipin was a co-founder and general partner of an early stage venture investment fund, INC3 Ventures based in Silicon Valley.

Bipin currently serves on the Boards of three start-up companies, and has previously served on the Boards of more than ten venture capital backed companies. Bipin holds a MS degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a BEE (Honors) from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.

About Kovair:

Kovair provides solutions for Application Lifecycle Management- ALM and IT Service Management ITSM solutions, supporting globally distributed multi-site application development and services. Its flagship products, The ALM Studio and the ITSM Studio are web based configurable products with built in workflow and integration framework that offer a set of integrated tools and processes for managing the entire IT lifecycle.

For more information, please visit www.kovair.com

Listen now:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Right click here to download the MP3

Credits…

Our opening and closing theme song is music by the wonderful Paul Hardcastle and www.paulhardcastle.com

2 Responses to Global System Rollouts – Focus on System Integration Challenges
  1. […] Aidane interviews Bipin Shah, CEO of Kovair Software, about their experience integrating several tools to provide a […]

  2. Kovair Blog for Year End 2010 |
    December 7, 2010 | 6:35 am

    […] In this blog, instead of writing something myself, I would like to provide a link to an interview of mine that was conducted by Samad Aidane of Guerilla Project Management http://www.Guerillaprojectmanagement.com.  In this interview Samad focused on questions about how Kovair executed a very large 14 tools integration project for Applications Lifecycle Management – ALM at a very large Global IT Services Company that is now in production with about 6,000 developers working from at least four different locations of this company on a totally web based collaborative environment!  Please follow the link below of the recorded interview  in a Q&A format http://www.guerrillaprojectmanagement.com/global-system-rollouts-focus-on-system-integration-challen… […]

Global System Rollouts – Focus on System Integration Challenges

Bipin_ShahIn this interview, I talk with Bipin Shah, President and CEO of Kovair Software, about the challenges and lessons learned integrating a mix of tools to provide an integrated Software Development and IT Lifecycle Management environment for one of the top ten global IT Companies.

Kovair’s customer, a global leader in delivering technology solutions to companies throughout the world, had customers and Project Managers in the U.S and development teams in India, China, and other countries.

The customer was using a mix of standard tools from different vendors and some home grown tools to support individual phases of Software Development and IT Management lifecycle. These tools were not well connected with each other and the information flow between the tools is mostly manual lacking coordination and synchronization.

The customer was finding it extremely difficult to share information between different lifecycle solutions, trace items through phases, propagate changes through phases, establish end-to-end automated lifecycle process, enforce consistent project management controls across phases, and gain total visibility into the status and progress of development and IT projects.

Kovair’s solution integrated an internal tool for Business Modeling, IBM Requisite Pro for Requirements Management, IBM Rose for Analysis & Design, IBM Test Manager for Test Management and an internal tool for central Project Management and Tracking.

kovair_omnibus

The Interview

Listen now:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Right click here to download the MP3

I asked Bipin the following:

  • Can you give us a brief background/overview of the project?
  • What were the business drivers for the project?
  • What was the solution or the technology of the project and why it was selected?
  • Can you give us more details about the project
  • What was your overall methodology/approach you followed to rollout the solution successfully to multiple counties?
  • How did you approach gathering requirements and defining scope of the project?
  • How did you handle testing the solution before launch?
  • What was your approach to training end users and people who will support the system?
  • What integration issues did you face? Did you find any challenges getting support from vendors the solution needed to integrate
  • What were the non-technical challenges you faced such as resistance to change?
  • What were the lessons learned from this global rollout?

About Bipin Shah:

After a varied career at Fairchild Semiconductor where he held Engineering, Manufacturing and Business Unit Management responsibility, Bipin joined Altera Corporation, a leading manufacturer of programmable logic devices at its early inception in 1984. As a member of Altera’s executive management team, he held positions of VP, Operations and President of Altera Japan, and was operationally responsible for revenue growth from zero to over $500 million run rate in 1994, and participated in Altera’s IPO in 1989. From 1997 to 1999, Bipin served as President and CEO of a chip startup Invox Technology, whose multi-level Flash memory technology was acquired by SanDisk Corporation. Between the years 2000 and 2005, Bipin was a co-founder and general partner of an early stage venture investment fund, INC3 Ventures based in Silicon Valley.

Bipin currently serves on the Boards of three start-up companies, and has previously served on the Boards of more than ten venture capital backed companies. Bipin holds a MS degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a BEE (Honors) from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.

About Kovair:

Kovair provides solutions for Application Lifecycle Management- ALM and IT Service Management ITSM solutions, supporting globally distributed multi-site application development and services. Its flagship products, The ALM Studio and the ITSM Studio are web based configurable products with built in workflow and integration framework that offer a set of integrated tools and processes for managing the entire IT lifecycle.

For more information, please visit www.kovair.com

Listen now:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Right click here to download the MP3

Credits…

Our opening and closing theme song is music by the wonderful Paul Hardcastle and www.paulhardcastle.com

2 Responses to Global System Rollouts – Focus on System Integration Challenges
  1. […] Aidane interviews Bipin Shah, CEO of Kovair Software, about their experience integrating several tools to provide a […]

  2. Kovair Blog for Year End 2010 |
    December 7, 2010 | 6:35 am

    […] In this blog, instead of writing something myself, I would like to provide a link to an interview of mine that was conducted by Samad Aidane of Guerilla Project Management http://www.Guerillaprojectmanagement.com.  In this interview Samad focused on questions about how Kovair executed a very large 14 tools integration project for Applications Lifecycle Management – ALM at a very large Global IT Services Company that is now in production with about 6,000 developers working from at least four different locations of this company on a totally web based collaborative environment!  Please follow the link below of the recorded interview  in a Q&A format http://www.guerrillaprojectmanagement.com/global-system-rollouts-focus-on-system-integration-challen… […]