ISIS engages “Super SMEs” for ZIMS Release 1

By Doug Verduzco
ZIMS Chief Architect

In the original ZIMS development process, we gathered invaluable input on data standards and specific functional requirements from five hundred volunteers, and they did a phenomenal job. In the new development process, we continue that direct input by people who will be using ZIMS.

To that end ISIS has engaged six experts from the zoo and aquarium field who will be spending weeks at a time in India with the developers who are writing ZIMS code. These six subject matter experts (SMEs) will be making many of the moment-to-moment decisions on what each ZIMS screen must capture in an intelligent way, and what functions it should provide to fully serve you. Their business expertise will be shaped by professional “User Interface Design” experts to make sure that ZIMS screens are easy to use and intuitive. This is our priority: to create a powerful application that is easy to use.

It’s important to the success of the ZIMS project that ISIS will be able to make decisions quickly and that is why we now have direct oversight of the project. Rather than even the smallest decisions getting tied up in layers of bureaucracy, ISIS will be able to make and communicate every decision, large or small, within hours so that work can remain on the fastest track possible.
The intrepid folks listed below will be spending time in their home towns, at the ISIS office in Minnesota, and in India making sure that ZIMS Release 1 is of superior quality. The Release 1 Super SMEs are:

Adrienne Miller (Registrar, Audubon Institute)
Duncan Bolton (Curator, Birdworld, Surry, United Kingdom)
Jason Crichton (Director of Husbandry & Facilities, South Carolina Aquarium)
Laurie Bingaman Lackey (Technical Advisor, SPARKS Expert, Giraffe Studbook Keeper)
Lynn McDuffie, (Registrar, Disney’s Animal Kingdom)
Tim Carpenter (Curator of Fish and Invertebrates, Seattle Aquarium)