- What Does RFID Do for the Consumer?
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Abstract: Want consumers to adopt RFID-based systems? Make the perceived (and real) risk acceptable through convenience, variety, and lower prices.
Bruce Eckfeldt, Cyrus Innovation
Link to Article on Communications of the ACM
(membership required)
- Agile2005: Target Cost Contracts
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Abstract: Agile approaches make a lot of sense to software developers, but selling Agile to business people can be a tricky task, particularly in a consulting situation. It is not difficult to get people to appreciate the benefits of Agile, but forming an agreement that embraces change is not simple. Target-Cost contracts have been suggested as a solution to structuring agile projects, but do they work? This experience report describes how we have successfully used them with three different clients. This approach has allowed us to build better client relationships by ensuring that contracts empower both the development team and the client to work collaboratively to deliver software that meets the client's real needs. We believe these experiences will add value to teams working in both a formal consulting environments as well as an internal development department.
Bruce Eckfeldt, Cyrus Innovation
Rex Madden, Cyrus Innovation
John Horowitz, Esq., Grotta, Glassman & Hoffman
Link to Paper (PDF - 61KB)
Link to Presentation (PDF - 1.08MB)
- Software Test & Performance
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Excerpt from article about Software Requirements Management on June, 2005 by Esther Schindler
'As Rex Madden, lead developer at Cyrus Innovation in New York says, "People always want to pile on some more scope. The trick is to tell them how much the new feature is going to cost ('turning the screens green will cost two developer days'). Then you ask them which features they are willing to kick out to accommodate the new feature ('Fine, the screens will be green. But you do realize the Save button still doesn't work.')...'
Link to Article (PDF)
- Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technologies: A Workshop Summary
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As a follow-on activity to the project that produced the report Embedded, Everywhere, CSTB with its Committee on Radio Frequency Identification Technologies conducted a short workshop that explored RFID technology and related technical and policy issues where Bruce Eckfeldt presented two seperate papers on the application of RFID in operations and retails environments. This report summarizes discussions by panelists and participants at that workshop.
Link to the CSTB Report Download page
- Stores Magazine (National Retail Federation)
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Excerpt from article about Prada's Epicenter store on May, 2004 by Susan Reda
'...[Cyrus Innovation] helps retailers and their technology partners manage what [Bruce] calls evolutionary development. "Too often technology is deployed without a clear understanding of the business impact or how long it will take to evaluate its effectiveness,” explains Eckfeldt. “We help clients to evaluate the users of the technology and their needs in the development process.
“What’s unique about the way we approach projects is that we emphasize the need to think, implement and deploy technology incrementally,” he says. “We design new functionality and deploy new working code every two weeks to gradually improve and learn; and every two weeks we evaluate the benefit of additional development. This way we can really control the investment and monitor the ROI.”...'
Link to Article on Stores.org website
- Future of RFID Adoption
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Position Paper for the National Academies Computer Science and Telecommunications Board Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technologies Workshop
May, 2004 by Bruce Eckfeldt
Consumers’ willingness to adopt RFID is dependant on the ability of consumers to make a clear judgment as to the risks and benefits of the technology. The main risk is invasion of privacy, while the benefits include lower prices, ease of use, and improved services. In order to make their own risk assessment, consumers must have a good understanding of the technology and trust the companies using it.
Acrobat PDF Document (15 KB)
- Rapid Development and Usability
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Presentation to the New York City Usability Professionals' Association
February, 2004 by Bruce Eckfeldt
In order to build large projects successfully, usability professionals must understand how the delivery of user value is affected by the project size and structure and how they must adjust techniques accordingly. This presentation explores why large projects fail to deliver real user value and how the concept of, and the approach to, usability changes when you start working in very short development cycles.
Acrobat PDF Document (214 KB)
