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ACE Customer Presentations reveal best practices for project success

JonHodge — Tue, 17 Apr 2018 16:56:54 GMT

In listening to the headline presentations at ACE, it struck me there were three shared themes that all talked about. Perhaps these are lessons learned that can be shared with others on the same journey.

Theme 1 : A clear vision aligned with business strategy drives projects

Martin described the Audi 2025 Strategy, with layers of functionality defined by the Vee model and a common language
Dirk spoke of the Schaeffler Roadmap for transforming from digitized paper to digitized MBSE and digitized Autonomy with business optimized processes based on global standards
Ms H from a major auto manufacturer, talked about a Culture of Trust, Respect and Responsibility and quoted Drucker saying "Culture eats strategy for breakfast"
Brian related how L3 expanded their vision and transformed the program scope

Theme 2 : There will always be multiple information systems and legacy tools

Audi told us about the ASE using Aras and Teamcenter and PTC tools, how the IT landscape looked like a bazaar and of a future in which "the user has the best tools to transform inputs into outputs.
Schaeffler talked about the user having one view of data prepared by others using the Schaeffler Semantic Information Layer supported by multiple tools
Ms H described 'scalability across domains' and interfaces with proprietary machines saying that "the flexible platform is the main reason we chose Aras"
L3 spoke of integrating PLM, ERP and CRM to improve product development processes for work instructions, documents, bids and quotes, process planners and closed loop quality systems to provide end to end traceability

Theme 3: Agile Implementation produces quicker and better results

Martin highlighted the need for "learning while doing" and described adopting scrum technology, making small steps and failing fast, and saying "Aras has a platform for quick wins"
Dirk described how Schaeffler used 3 week sprints with 250 user stories in a release, with 25 per sprint saying "only when they see it do they know what needs to be changed" and "Don't develop for 3 years, when it's done you'll have a system that is 3 years out of date
Ms H spoke of the 100% Agile goal, the definition of the Minimum Viable Product and how business and dev-ops teams used private cloud, continuous integration and automated testing
Brian told us about the L3 War Room, and the Phased Agile approach and the need to allo, requirements to change and grow, resulting in On-Time and On-Budget deployments and contributing to cultural change

Of course the presenters talked of other things, but their experience may inspire others on the same path to follow the themes as best practices.

From Scrum to SAFe , Scaled Agile Framework for the enterprise

JonHodge — Sun, 25 Feb 2018 16:00:52 GMT

There is an opportunity for the Aras DAD, Disciplined Agile Delivery for implementations, to formalize processes using SAFe practices with the Continuous Integration functionality being rolled out by Aras DevOps and Training.

The Agile Manifesto and Principles were created in 2001. In the Project Management Institute (PMI) 2017 Pulse of the Profession report , titled "Success Rates Rise", states that "71 percent of organizations report using agile approaches for their projects sometimes, often, or always." Agile is mainstream and the design of Aras Innovator is closely aligned with the Agile Principles; it is designed for incremental delivery.

In fact, there are themes shared between Agile, SIx Sigma and the Lean Enterprise and Project Management, these may be summarized as:

Be clear about what you are trying to do before you start
Decompose work into small elements
Use a standard process for working on each element
Use and iterative approach, with feedback from early work to improve subsequent work

As W Edwards Deming's said it, Plan-Do-Check-Act. He was a man who understood the impact of one syllable words.

What is Scrum?

Scrum dogma:
- Write requirements as User Stories, "as a role member, I want this so that the result is"
- Manage User Stories in a Backlog
- Use cross functional teams of 5 to 7
- Each team is self directing
- Work in a formal series of iterations, sprints
- Use roles: Product Owner sets scope as User Stories, Scrum Master is coach, or servant leader
- Use ceremonies, sprint planning, daily stand up, sprint review or demo, retrospective
- Optional
  - Pair Programming
  - Continuous Integration
  - ... more

[caption id="attachment_11290" align="alignnone" width="1729"] SAFe-Terminology[/caption]

A scrum team can produce only so much in a sprint, so larger projects will require several scrum teams. SAFe is to Scrum what opera is to a string quartet. It is bigger, more complex, a richer experiece, high art! As its name suggests it is all about scale.

WHAT IS SAFe®

It adopts pretty much all of Scrum, although it uses some different terms. There is an online summary diagram , the following describes the central themes

SAFe has its own dogma:
- Use multiple cross functional Scrum Teams
- Create a 2 to 4 level organizational hierarchy, Team and Program with optional Portfolio and Value Stream levels
- The total number of people is limited to 80 to 125, Dunbar's number
- Adopt standard terminology for each level (see diagram above)
- Use Program Increments (Releases) of 16 to 24 weeks
- Allow one Increment(Sprint) of slack time in each Program Increment(Release)
- Conduct Program Increment(Release) Planning in the last Increment(Sprint) of the previous Program Increment(Release) and review the current Plan at its mid point
- Have the whole Team present for Program Increment(Release) Planning
- Use a prescribed and detailed agenda for Program Increment(Release) Planning
- Continuous Integration is mandatory
- Every teams Iteration(Sprint) backlog should include 30% of technical "Enablers" to maintain its "Architectural Runway"

[caption id="attachment_11292" align="alignnone" width="1201"] SAFe-Scale-Illustration[/caption]

SAFe®'s Rationale
- It adopts Agile Scrum, and adds Lean Thinking, some concepts of Six Sigma and aspects of business psychology
- It prescribes a scalable structure and means of communiation
- Its terminology is disctinct from Scrum
- It attempts to "right size" groups and durations based on experience
- It focuses on human behavior, motivating people, avoiding dysfunctional teams and anti-patterns
- It operates a training and certification program

What will it take to embrace SAFe® for Aras Implementations?

While Agile, Lean, Six Sigma and other business improvement ideas are now mainstream, they cannot be just switched on. It takes time, effort, training, experience and continuous, or in SAFe terminology 'relentless', improvement. The journey can be started by a willing new Program of Scrum Teams .

Consuming Web Service in Method, Update for v11 and .Net 4

JonHodge — Mon, 20 Nov 2017 19:22:16 GMT

Needing to consume a Web Service defined by a .wsdl file for v11SP9, I read the KnowledgeBase Article http://community.aras.com/en/knowledgebase/consume-web-service-server-method/ which says : "Assuming .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2003", so I had some issues. The steps listed in the article are still valid, but where to find wsdl.exe, csc.exe on a Windows 10 machine? And how to find out what classes are exposed in the resulting dll?

Where is Wsdl.EXE?

It is not in Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64, but a Windows Search found it in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\ both v7.0A\Bin and v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.6 Tools.

I used tried both and they both produced a .cs file using:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bin\Wsdl.exe" web_service_name.wsdl /o:web_service_name.cs
pause

Where is CSC.EXE?

It is at C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319

And web_service_name.cs was compiled using:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\csc.exe /t:library /out:web_service_name.dll web_service_name.cs /reference:System.dll,System.Web.dll,System.Web.Services.dll,System.XML.dll /optimize
pause

what classes are exposed

It turns out that web_service_name.cs generated code has a compliler directive to compile for .Net 2.0, so it works fine for Aras Methods. I was confused by the fact that was no .Net namespace in the code, how to find out what types to use in a Method? Browsing for web_service_name.dll in ObjectExplorer in Visual Studio reveals what's in the dll. Use the class names from ObjectExplorer in your Method.

SETTing UP Aras

Copy your dll to Innovator/Server/bin, and edit Innovator/Server/method_config.xml.

I needed to add the following to <ReferencedAssemblies> in method_config.xml:

<name>$(binpath)/web_service_name.dll</name>

And

using System.Web.Services

to <Template name="CSharp">

Result

Using web service classes in a Method and Syntax checking yields:

Checking syntax...

OK: 2BDAA2BFAFC343549A731F6E11605BF7.

Bingaloo! If you need any other using statements in method_config templates, the Syntax Checker will be sure to let you know.

Debugging Client Side Code

JonHodge — Thu, 26 Jan 2017 09:09:19 GMT

It's been a while since I have sent emails with Subscribers KnowledgeBase articles. There hasn't been a shortage of topics nor a lack of need for sharing, it's just that there are only 168 hours in a week.

Here is a new Community KnowledgeBase article about debugging client side code with how-to steps for all supported browsers.

Yes, that's Edge on top, supported by v11SP9 released this week.

When I first came to Aras I discovered that the founding fathers never used a debugger. This could have been because they had deep knowledge or because they had the rare gift of always writing perfect code, or more likely both. Not so for me. I have learned more about Aras Innovator by stepping through code and inspecting variables than from any other source. Perhaps you have too. If I could not google my error messages, I'd be in a different line of work now. The Aras Community is the place to share lessons learned, how to, and problems too.

Let me invite all Aras Practitioners to use the KB. Get a little, give a little. We invite all Aras users to create articles and submit them for publication. Let's make it the StackOverflow of Aras.

-Jon Hodge