Published on the 28/04/2015 | Written by Beverley Head

Jade Software is planning to reveal more of its creative chops this year to demonstrate to customers the benefits of a design-led approach to software development…

It’s not often that a software company will use sculpture and dance to define software projects – but in a bid to deliver its customers a fresh perspective on software development, Christchurch headquartered Jade Software is doing just that for customers in Australia and New Zealand.

Working with the University of Auckland Elam School of Fine Arts, Jade came up with a workshop for clients that encouraged customers to develop a word cloud that expressed how they could get a product to market, that was then transformed into sculpture then dance. About 40 of the company’s customers attended the event last December.

Director of marketing Caroline Francis acknowledged that it was a risky approach for the firm’s more technical partners but that it was an opportunity to trial creative innovation and design-led thinking. Francis said repeat programmes are slated for Sydney and Auckland this October.

Founded in 1978, Jade Software now has 200 employees and offices in New Zealand, Australia, the US, the UK and the UAE. According to the general manager of Jade in Australia, Craig Beveridge, it is important to take people out of their “normal comfort zones” when developing new software.

He said that Jade started injecting design-led practices into software development back in 2005 to replace the traditional approach which involved “business analysts and two-foot thick requirement documents”.

The approach now is to take a white board full of ideas and work out the best way to bring that to market.

To do so, Jade often injects what Beveridge describes as a wild card, into the project team – often a student who has no preconceived ideas or sacred cows.

He says that in a recent project working with a customer in logistics Jade gave a number of university students – one computer scientist, one physics student and one from arts and design – Google Glass to see how augmented reality might be deployed. “This approach takes a different view of solving a problem.

“In that case it led to a wider discussion with people in the port about the use of augmented reality,” said Beveridge.

“These guys come in with no preconceived ideas about how the industry works. They ask some pretty odd questions, but they need to be asked.”