I was recently in Malta for a conference with 6pm an event hosted very kindly by them to talk about their use of Agile Methodology and to get some insight into their use of some very cool tools they use called Quick BI and Quick UI.

Both of these tools use a series of magnets that are attached to white boards to facilitate and aid organisations in the design and specification of their reports and data entry screens. These very simple tools are highly effective and the best part is that workshop participants are the ones who design their own forms and screens by having direct input into what they want.

6pm estimate that 70% of a reports development cost is down to time consumed in attempting to define the report layout and information requirements. By speeding up the report and screen design specifications can therefore greatly reduce costs.

I was so impressed that ThinkShield is looking to adapt this methodology for use on our own implementations.