Case Study

Allen Wyke - Development Manager

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Managing a development team is not for everyone. Long hours and quick decision making are part of the game, and you have to stay current with the latest technologies to stay one step ahead of your competitors.

Allen Wyke joined Redwood Software to manage the team of developers working on Report2Web — an innovative web-based document management solution. Juggling the product development and future direction, and collaborating with the sales, marketing, and support teams, requires focus and close attention to detail. In addition to his day job, Allen is a technology consultant and has written a dozen computer books, with an upcoming title on using Mac OS X for small and home offices.

Thinking Like an Engineer

"I build software for a living, but I don't want to have to think like a software engineer to use my computer. The combination of Mac OS X and Curio's intuitive interface allows me to focus on what I want to accomplish and not on the tools needed to accomplish it."

Curio's unrestricted idea spaces, list making, and note gathering features allow Allen to lay out collages of ideas in an unstructured, freeform way. Allen is also a big fan of Sleuth — Curio's amazing Internet research assistant — which effortlessly finds images that describe an idea perfectly which can then be dragged into his collage of ideas.

Essence

"Curio allows me to take the essence of my project and bring it into digital form." Gone are the whiteboards and scraps of note paper. These static forms of note taking have become passe.

"Curio keeps all my information in a living, breathing digital format that allows me to adapt my initial design ideas to new and changing input."

Allen creates a Curio project for each task and dives into the brainstorming. Results are bounced around the office in exported JPG or PDF format for all to see. Curio's project-based architecture allows Allen to manage multiple tasks and archive them when a task is complete.

Feedback Loop

Using Curio for GUI mockups for Redwood's Report2Web web-based product has been invaluable.

"Just last week Curio allowed me to quickly prototype the GUI for the next generation of our product. I bounced prototype images with notes and references back and forth with the CEO over email. The whole process was wrapped up in three email exchanges. Curio made creating the mockups and incorporating feedback a breeze."

After wrapping up the prototype, Allen used his notes stored in Curio to flesh out a sophisticated OmniGraffle flowchart of the GUI's user-interaction process flow. As with all documents for this task, the finished flowchart was embedded in his Curio project so everything related to the task stays in one spot.

Allen is actually the only Mac user at the RTP office of Redwood Software but that didn't stop him from collaborating with his Windows colleagues thanks to Curio's flexible export options. But those export options may soon no longer be needed: another executive was so impressed with what Allen has been able to accomplish that he recently purchased his own PowerBook!

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