This year, we had a great roster of our customers presenting their success stories. Conference attendees heard from PepsiCo, Orange County Public Schools, Clorox, the City of Edmonton, and Rockwell Collins regarding their learning projects and their use of ANCILE uPerform. In addition, our customer, GE Industrial Solutions, was honored with the SAP Education Best Practices Award. GE Industrial used ANCILE uPerform (also known as SAP Productivity Pak) for their SAP project. (Orange County Public Schools was selected as the first runner up for this award!)

Some of the discussion topics and themes we heard as the ANCILE team attended ASUG sessions:

• With the maturity of the SAP installed base of customers, continual success is based on continual investment in the lifecycle, which includes the user population. Initially, that was addressed by training. For the long haul, it must be addressed by supporting performance, collaborating, informing, updating, and communicating wherever people are and however they work.
• After the initial SAP implementation, efforts to sustain workforce learning and performance using SAP (or any business application) wane or disintegrate.
• Sometimes organizations need to ‘feel the pain’ of not maintaining investment in the workforce to understand the importance.
• Organizational change management is not only necessary in preparation for the initial changes brought about by the SAP implementation. It is an everyday focus.
• Relating to the SAP lifecycle, more organizations are implementing roles focusing on user sustainment, continuous workforce improvement, and analytics related to employee investments and performance.

A thank you to all the current customers who stopped by to visit us on the exhibit floor!

The adage is the world waits for no one. Delivering quality software requires focus and flexibility. Market and customer demands are a moving target. ANCILE is meeting this challenge by changing the way we create software. Starting in 2011, ANCILE began a move towards an Agile software development process as defined by the Scrum Alliance.

In the past, ANCILE would aim to bring updated products to the marketplace with a major update about once a year. There would be lots of upfront planning, writing functional requirements specifications and other documentation. It would be several months before we would begin to write the code that would become the product that you use.

In recent months, the entire development team has received two days of intensive training and passed a certification that they understood the Agile development process. The Agile development methodology allows software companies to be more nimble, responsive, and closer to our clients. Because we are building incremental chunks of software in short timeframes, more stakeholders both inside and outside our company can have a significant impact on what actually gets delivered before the product is ready to be released.

ANCILE is already working with one of our partners on the ANCILE uPerform™ 5.1 release. The partner will be able to see the software incrementally every two weeks and will be able to provide valuable feedback to ensure the released software meets their customers’ needs.

Our next release is going from drawing board to release in less than three months. By working closely with the market, ANCILE was able to distill the marketing requirements down to a series of user stories grouped into two Epics. Product Management ranks these Epics and stories based on stakeholder feedback. This ensures that the release contains the most important stories when we reach release.

The scrum teams work from the Product Management-ranked backlog in two-week sprints. The teams build and test one or more stories in each sprint completely. Rather than the Waterfall process, where most of the software comes together right at the end of the entire cycle, our teams now have working software two weeks into the entire process and every two weeks until release.

The Scrum process is illustrated here:

At the end of every sprint, two things happen. The teams demonstrate to internal and possibly external stakeholders what a feature looks like and obtains feedback. If necessary, the feedback can be added to the product backlog and ranked for a future sprint if needed. And, each team has a retrospective to discuss three items:

• What should we stop doing?
• What should we start doing?
• What should we change?

Then the process starts again with Product Management and the teams determining the most important stories to tackle in the next two weeks.

The benefits to our customers/partners are:

• Visibility and feedback during the development process.
• Higher quality with a renewed focus on zero defects leaving a sprint.
• Highest priority items (features/bugs) are done first
• Potentially faster time to market
• More nimble in incorporating emerging market ideas

The learning development world has adapted Agile by introducing SAM, the Successive Approximation Model, and the Savvy Start in the book, Leaving ADDIE for SAM.  And, for more on the Agile impact on learning software, check out What Agile Technology Means for the Future of Learning Software by our CTO, Alan Young.

For more information on Scrum, here are a few additional links:

• The Agile Manifesto
• Scrum 101
• What is the difference between Agile and Scrum?

ELKRIDGE, Md., May 8, 2013  – ANCILE Solutions, Inc., a global provider of best-in-class learning and performance software solutions to more than half of the Fortune 100, will explore strategies for workforce management and micro-learning benefits with Orange County Public Schools at this year’s SAPPHIRE NOW and ASUG Annual Conference at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida from May 14-16, 2013. ANCILE will also share key findings from the company’s recent ROI study and strategies for improving enterprise investments and end user performance.

The annual SAPPHIRE NOW and ASUG Annual Conference brings end users, partners, and SAP experts together to discuss critical business issues and learn about solutions and services to best leverage their investments in SAP technologies. Users of ANCILE uPerform™ (also known as SAP Productivity Pak) on average see a 37 percent reduction in time to employee proficiency.

Hear What the Experts Have to Say:

• Wednesday, May 15 from 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. (Session 1306) – Deploying Global SAP Training. Karen Jones, Service Account Manager for ANCILE, will discuss the complexities of training a disparate workforce during a global implementation.
• Thursday, May 16 from 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. (Session 1411) – Micro-learning: It’s About The Message – Orange County Public Schools.  In the fast-paced world of public education, the workforce must be prepared for responding to disruption of their daily routine. Valerie Hall, Assistant Director Customer Care, and Margaret Sarjou, Application Analyst, will share how Orange County Public Schools uses a micro-learning strategy to enable its workforce to react with agility in a rapidly changing environment.

Leveraging Software Investments to Drive ROI:

• Wednesday, May 15 from 3:00 – 3:45 p.m. The ROI of Investing in Your User Performance (Partner and SME Solutions Microforum PC806 on Exhibit Floor).  Mal Poulin, Director of Product Strategy for ANCILE, will highlight data from the 15 organizations that contributed to ANCILE’s ROI study, including their specific business outcomes. This session will discuss metrics, strategies, and approaches to improve and prove user performance and bolster ROI.
• Thursday, May 16 from 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. (Session 1413) – Leverage your SAP Investments: Learning and Performance Excellence Across the Enterprise.  Mal Poulin, Director of Product Strategy for ANCILE, will explore how to extend SAP implementation project investments in learning, performance support, and collaboration to the rest of the enterprise by effectively leveraging methods, tools, and assets.

ANCILE’s experts will be onsite to give demonstrations of ANCILE uPerform™ 5 and ANCILE uAlign™ and share specific benefits for employees, business stakeholders, content authors, and IT staff. The company’s executives can also discuss the enhanced project management, dashboard reporting, and crowd-sourced authoring capabilities in ANCILE uPerform™ 5.

Be sure to visit ANCILE at Booth #1031. To schedule a briefing or learn more about ANCILE’s participation at the SAPPHIRE NOW and ASUG Annual Conference, contact Laura Anderson at ancile@mww.com or visit: http://www.ancile.com/event/sapphire-now-asug/

(Note session times and locations may change without notice)

About ANCILE Solutions, Inc.

ANCILE Solutions, Inc. is a global software solutions company specializing in the development and support of learning and performance products. ANCILE products support mission-critical business applications by providing solutions that increase employee productivity and proficiency. ANCILE products are used across all industries by over 3,500 customers and 17 million users in 88 countries. ANCILE customers include more than half of the Fortune 100. ANCILE develops, sells, supports and services ANCILE uPerform™, ANCILE uPerform™ Express, ANCILE uAlign™, ANCILE uLearn™, ANCILE uBenchmark™, and ANCILE Info Pak™. ANCILE is headquartered in Elkridge, Maryland. For additional information, please visit www.ancile.com.

We’ll be at the Technology Services World 2013 Best Practices conference next week in Silicon Valley, California. In addition to a spot on the Expo floor, our own Vince Lucey will be presenting on Making the Move to Mobile Learning, Wednesday at 9:45.

The week of May 13, the ANCILE team is headed out on our annual pilgrimage to Orlando, Florida for the SAPPHIRE NOW + ASUG conference. On the Expo floor, we’re doing regular in-booth demos on ANCILE uPerform and ANCILE uAlign (see a demo and enter for a chance to win a $100 gift card!). Plus, each day we’re drawing for a $500 gift card. Our customers are delivering many Services and Support sessions this year – take a look at the list of sessions focused on employee training and education. We’d love to meet you at Booth 1031!

Want to maximize your ANCILE product investment? Join us at one of our ANCILE Products Users Group (APUG) events around the globe. So far, we have Singapore, South Africa, Munich, Sydney, Washington, D.C., and London on the books…and more events are coming. Visit our Events page for more information.

We’re hosting two webinars in the coming weeks. Register to attend live or, if date and time are not convenient, to receive the replay link:

• Meet ANCILE uAlign – Manage Communications and Compliance for Today’s Workforce – May 9. This webinar will give you an introduction to our latest product, ANCILE uAlign.

• ANCILE uPerform 5: Raising the Bar for Learning and Performance Support – May 29. This webinar will highlight the value and features in our latest ANCILE uPerform release. If you’re relatively new to uPerform, kicking the tires and considering uPerform, or just want a preview, register for this webinar. (For our customers looking for a deeper dive into new features, check out the ANCILE Product Support Center for an early June webinar.)

We’re excited to see our customer Andrea Wallace from Tyson Foods featured in this video where she offers advice on training: Live from SAPinsider GRC 2013.

Locally at our headquarters here in Maryland, we participated in the MS Walk and Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work® Day. The challenge for the children was to build a tower out of spaghetti….resulting in activity, sounds, and results not typically seen here at headquarters!

ELKRIDGE, Md., Apr. 23, 2013 – ANCILE Solutions, Inc.,a global provider of best-in-class learning and performance software solutions to more than half of the Fortune 100, today announced the availability of ANCILE uPerform™ 5 to partner resellers and direct-licensed customers. ANCILE uPerform™ 5 is a scalable authoring and content management solution, which enables organizations to rapidly create, deliver, and manage learning content, increasing productivity across the enterprise.

According to IDC research study, (IDC Predictions 2013: Competing on the 3rd Platform, November 2012), “2013 IT spending will exceed $2.1 trillion, up 5.7% from 2012,” increasing the demand for skilled IT project teams. Enterprises rely on training programs to decrease costly knowledge gaps and assist with the successful deployment of applications. Effective training solutions are imperative to the relay of company policies and help to drive greater worker productivity and user adoption.

“Aligning organizational performance with business priorities is critical to enterprise success. However, process changes, personnel changes and incomplete training each contribute to reduce organizational performance,” said Cushing Anderson, Vice President for IT Education and Certification research at IDC. “Tools that facilitate enhanced visibility into training completion, and provide a straightforward approach to content authoring can help organizations develop and confidently impact organizational skills to achieve business objectives.”

Specific ANCILE uPerform™ 5 capabilities include:

• Project Management: Facilitates content creation, assignment, deployment, status monitoring, and maintenance. Users can designate separate task and content owners, assign documents via email, and view assigned tasks on the server.
• Crowd-Sourced Authoring & Rapid Recorder: Empowers subject matter experts (SMEs) and regional experts to quickly and easily create localized content, without training.
• Dashboard Reporting: Dashboard analytics and new reports (help request, task status, user data, and website usage) track content creation and consumption on an organization’s website, while providing insight to the overall impact of training and ROI. An interactive graphical pie chart, project page, and report export ensure visibility across all projects, and help senior management drive business decisions.

“ANCILE uPerform 5 delivers powerful new productivity functionality while adding a host of new platform configuration and optimization features,” said Frank Lonergan , CEO of ANCILE Solutions. “With uPerform 5, we’ve built on our earlier success and created an even more advanced training solution that will address our client’s most complex project management and reporting requirements.”

ANCILE will be showcasing ANCILE uPerform™ 5 at Technology Services World 2013 Best Practices on May 6-8 (Booth # 25) and the SAPPHIRE NOW + ASUG Annual Conference on May 14-16 (Booth # 1031).

For more information about ANCILE uPerform™ 5, please visit http://www.ancile.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/New-in-ANCILE-uPerform-5.pdf.

About ANCILE Solutions, Inc.

ANCILE Solutions, Inc. is a global software solutions company specializing in the development and support of learning and performance products. ANCILE products support mission-critical business applications by providing solutions that increase employee productivity and proficiency. ANCILE products are used across all industries by over 3,500 customers and 17 million users in 88 countries. ANCILE customers include more than half of the Fortune 100. ANCILE develops, sells, supports, and services ANCILE uPerform™, ANCILE uPerform™ Express, ANCILE uAlign™, ANCILE uLearn™, ANCILE uBenchmark™, and ANCILE Info Pak™. ANCILE is headquartered in Elkridge, Maryland. For additional information, please visit www.ancile.com.

ELKRIDGE, Md., Apr. 10, 2013 – ANCILE Solutions, Inc., a global provider of best-in-class learning and performance software solutions to more than half of the Fortune 100, today announced that Laura McCluer has joined the company as Director, Partnerships and Alliances. In this role, Ms. McCluer will be responsible for identifying and developing key partnerships to expand ANCILE’s domestic and global market presence.

Ms. McCluer brings over 15 years of business development and strategic alliances experience to ANCILE. Throughout her career, she has built a high proficiency for identifying business opportunities and articulating unique product and solution value. Ms. McCluer has also led teams that have impacted millions in product revenue by developing successful partnerships. Most recently she served as Vice President, Service Provider Customer Solutions Unit, as well as Vice President Strategic Alliances at CA Technologies, Inc., a $4.4 billion developer of enterprise IT management software solutions for managing and securing complex IT environments. Previously, she held positions at Novell, Inc.; Intermec Corporation; Attachmate Corporation; and Mosaix.

“We are excited to have such a driven professional join ANCILE’s partnership team,” stated Patrick Dunlap, VP of Channel Sales and Professional Services. “Ms. McCluer has a proven ability to create and pursue new markets all while establishing and building key relationships. This experience will be a valuable asset to ANCILE as we look to expand our market presence through collaborative strategic partnerships that will enable us to deliver the best learning and performance solutions.”

ANCILE currently has three global partners that deploy the company’s learning and performance software worldwide. Each of these partners use ANCILE’s training software to increase the adoption of their software solutions and drive revenue growth for their education and services businesses.

About ANCILE Solutions, Inc.

ANCILE Solutions, Inc. is a global software solutions company specializing in the development and support of learning and performance products. ANCILE products support mission-critical business applications by providing solutions that increase employee productivity and proficiency. ANCILE products are used across all industries by over 3,500 customers and 17 million users in 88 countries. ANCILE customers include more than half of the Fortune 100. ANCILE develops, sells, supports, and services ANCILE uPerform™, ANCILE uPerform™ Express, ANCILE uAlign™,  ANCILE uLearn™, ANCILE uBenchmark™, and ANCILE Info Pak™. ANCILE is headquartered in Elkridge, Maryland. For additional information, please visit www.ancile.com.

ELKRIDGE, Md., Apr. 3, 2013 – ANCILE Solutions, Inc., a global provider of best-in-class learning and performance software solutions to more than half of the Fortune 100, today announced its partnership with BMC Software. Tens of thousands of IT organizations around the world rely on BMC to manage their business services and applications across distributed, mainframe, virtual, and cloud environments. The alliance allows BMC to provide ANCILE uPerform™ Express to clients seeking to simplify solution adoption, reduce costs, and enhance agility in responding to evolving market demands.

“In addition to accelerating time to value and improving solution adoption, we’re excited to partner with BMC to extend their customers’ value realization,” said Frank Lonergan, Chief Executive Officer of ANCILE. “This partnership will add BMC to the 17 million users in 88 countries currently reaping the benefits of ANCILE’s XML-based single-source content authoring approach to drive business productivity.”

Tapping into the power of ANCILE uPerform™ Express, BMC Education Services has launched the Education Solution Accelerator (ESA) to enable organizations to create, maintain, and publish instructional and eLearning content in support of BMC’s solutions. Through the power of a single-source file, content can be developed and deployed globally in 31 languages and on a wide range of mobile and connected devices. ANCILE uPerform™ Express also provides the flexibility to record virtually any Microsoft Windows- and web-based application.

BMC is now shipping the ESA offering, powered by ANCILE uPerform™ Express, as well as solution-specific add-on content designed to further accelerate realized value. The initial content set is based on the BMC Remedy IT Service Management Suite, the industry-leading ITSM solution.

“As we continue to grow our customer and partner base for ANCILE uPerform™ Express software, we’ll continue to identify opportunities with key players, such as BMC, to strengthen education services and help customers successfully use business software,” said Patrick Dunlap, Vice President of Channel Sales and Professional Services for ANCILE.

About ANCILE uPerform™ Express

ANCILE uPerform™ Express allows organizations to rapidly and easily create, edit, and publish documents, simulations, and eLearning courses, and then quickly deploy the content directly into the hands of the entire workforce via the web. Using ANCILE uPerform™ Express’ unique combination of authoring, publishing, and performance support, organizations can reduce content development and maintenance costs while delivering targeted, high-quality learning content to improve overall user performance. More information on the ANCILE uPerform™ products, including a brief video presentation of the software, can be found on the ANCILE website at www.ancile.com.

About ANCILE Solutions, Inc.

ANCILE Solutions, Inc. is a global software solutions company specializing in the development and support of learning and performance products. ANCILE products support mission-critical business applications by providing solutions that increase employee productivity and proficiency. ANCILE products are used across all industries by over 3,500 customers and 17 million users in 88 countries. ANCILE customers include more than half of the Fortune 100. ANCILE develops, sells, supports, and services ANCILE uPerform™, ANCILE uPerform™ Express, ANCILE uAlign™,  ANCILE uLearn^™, ANCILE uBenchmark^™, and ANCILE Info Pak™. ANCILE is headquartered in Elkridge, Maryland. For additional information, please visit www.ancile.com.

During our most recent webinar — ANCILE uAlign: Prioritize and Manage Corporate Communications — we were joined by Yvette Cameron of Constellation Research Group.

Yvette shared some amazing statistics on employee engagement in organizations today. Engagement is a topic that has steadily gained focus over recent years – while only a minor rumble before the economic downturn, it’s turning into a steady drumbeat now. I think a great way to get your arms around “engagement” is to define it as Josh Bersin does:

Our definition of employee engagement is “that which creates discretionary effort.” You can never get enough “discretionary” effort in your organization.

Yvette’s research indicates:

• On average, at any point in time, only about 25% of employees are engaged.
• Just under 30% of the workforce is actively disengaged. In other words, this group has not only ‘turned off’, they are probably influencing others to do the same.
• Less than 15% of employees leave for extrinsic reasons – benefits, salary, etc. Rather, they leave because they are uninspired, disengaged, and unmotivated.

Josh Bersin echoes some of these findings in a recent post on Forbes that summarizes his annual predictions for corporate HR, leadership, and talent management:

As far as engagement goes, research shows that employees are pretty burned out right now. They’ve been working hard and receiving less pay in the last five years, leading to the lowest general engagement scores in a decade. And thanks to the open world of social networks, unhappy employees can tell people about their unhappiness very quickly. So if you don’t have a program to measure, monitor, and improve engagement you should develop one.

So, what DOES make a positive impact on employee engagement and, ultimately, organizations? Yvette’s research finds that employees want to not only build their own reputation and brand, but they also want to “bring others along with them”. The desire for advancement is not just personal – there’s a ‘let me share my knowledge, let’s move forward together’ piece that is key to most individuals’ motivation. Also key to aiding motivation is an employee’s confidence of success. When an employee feels that her probable success in a task or project is high, her motivation is increased.

So, why should business leaders care? What’s the ‘so what’? Engaged, involved, and motivated teams don’t just add sunshine to the office. They work more efficiently and they accomplish more — whether it’s more sales, more product, or higher customer service levels. Constellation’s findings indicate that an engaged workforce grows profits 3 times faster and with 12% higher profitability. Bottom line, these employees expend “discretionary” effort that directly translates to profit.

During the webinar, we highlighted ways our latest product – ANCILE uAlign™ – can help organizations foster an involved, informed, engaged team.

ANCILE uAlign allows you to quickly and easily get important communications, updates, and knowledge nuggets out to your teams. With receipts and assessments, you get back acknowledgements and can ensure compliance. The unique blend of messages, channels, and campaigns gets targeted information to the right people, at the right time, and with the right cadence to ensure success and engagement. ANCILE uAlign delivers actionable communications to align and engage employees and drive organizational results.

To hear and learn more, check out the webinar playback.

ELKRIDGE, Md., Feb. 28, 2013- ANCILE Solutions, Inc., a global provider of best-in-class learning and performance software solutions to more than half of the Fortune 100, has been awarded with 3 Bronze People’s Choice Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service in the following categories: Innovation in Customer Service, Best Use of Technology in Customer Service, and Relationship Management Solution. ANCILE’s Global Support and Hosting Services were selected as a finalist for 3 of the 4 categories submitted.

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service are the world’s top sales awards, contact center awards, and customer service awards. The Stevie Awards organizes several of the world’s leading business awards shows including the prestigious American Business Awards℠ and International Business Awards℠.

“ANCILE is proud to be recognized and share the company of such dynamic customer support programs and teams,” said Frank Lonergan , CEO of ANCILE Solutions. “The Stevie Awards are an incredible honor, and we are humbled by the quality of the other distinguished organizations across business sectors. It’s gratifying that others in the industry continue to acknowledge us for the work done in conjunction with our clients and partners.”

More than 1,100 entries from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted to this year’s competition, an increase of 10% over 2012. Entries were considered in 30 categories for customer service professionals, including Contact Center of the Year, Award for Innovation in Customer Service, and Customer Service Department of the Year.

“From our perspective this was the most successful Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service yet,” said Michael Gallagher , president and founder of the Stevie Awards. “Not just because of the increase in the number and variety of entries, but in the extraordinary quality of the entries. Judges have told me how impressed they were with the success stories they reviewed this year. All of this year’s Stevie Award winners are truly deserving.”

ANCILE’s Global Support and Hosting Services currently help to provide over 3,500 customers with world-class service. The team’s innovative value-add proactive support service and effective dialogue are instrumental to the success of ANCILE’s business and overall relationship with customers.

“There’s a growing demand for collaboration management and operational visibility, which drives companies to seek out the most powerful ERP solutions available,” said Dave Baca , VP of Global Support and Hosting Services. “We began refining our Global Support organization with new technologies back in 2010, with the idea of building a proactive service for our customers. To date, we’ve seen great reception from ANCILE’s customers and we plan to continue these efforts in 2013.”

Details about the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service and the list of Stevie winners in all categories are available at http://www.stevieawards.com/sales/.

About ANCILE Solutions, Inc.

ANCILE Solutions, Inc. is a global software solutions company specializing in the development and support of learning and performance products. ANCILE products support mission-critical business applications by providing solutions that increase employee productivity and proficiency. ANCILE products are used across all industries by over 3,500 customers and 17 million users in 88 countries. ANCILE customers include more than half of the Fortune 100. ANCILE develops, sells, supports and services ANCILE uPerform™, ANCILE uPerform™ Express, ANCILE uAlign™, ANCILE uLearn™, ANCILE uBenchmark™, and ANCILE Info Pak™. ANCILE is headquartered in Elkridge, Maryland. For additional information, please visit www.ancile.com.