Carr Systems Incorporated
Execution is the great differentiator in a global economy
Open Source for Collaboration, Doc Management
Challenge:
Rheuminations is an organization dedicated to serving people with lupus. Providing information, supporting research, promoting collaboration, and 'fighting the good fight', Rheuminations serves a global constituency. Unfortunately, the organization had grown frustrated with project delays and cost overruns that were hampering the release of a new web-based document management and research platform. Carr Systems was engaged to assess the incomplete SharePoint application and recommend a corrective course of action.
Solution:
Carr completed its initial system analysis in about a month. Hired in part because of our SharePoint experience, we determined that not only had the original application been poorly architected, but more importantly SharePoint was the wrong technology to fulfill the business requirements. Our next phase of work was to develop the necessary design and content migration documents. We recommended a Drupal-based solution in order to seamlessly support the many collaboration and workflow requirements, while simplifying support and system management. Techniques utilized during this engagement included reverse engineering of the legacy application, performance testing, requirements and data mapping, custom software design, and information assurance.
Impact:
Building a prototype to first prove the solution was an important step in this project. SharePoint is versatile software, and we work with it often, but proper due diligence up front should have revealed that it was the wrong framework for this project. Studies suggest that software development projects fail more than 40% of the time, and that the seeds of failure are typically sewn at project launch. Fortunately, we were able to recover much of the original Rheuminations IT investment, but re-purpose it in a more suitable framework.
Carr Systems continues to develop the Drupal-based platform for the customer. A multi-phase project with several scheduled releases, the final version of the technology will be phased in during 2011. We are very pleased to be supporting such a worthwhile cause through our efforts.
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