Our products draw upon 50 years of social theory. “Commitment-Based Management” is beginning to enter the mainstream of modern management practice. Mounting evidence shows improvements in virtually all measures of performance including reduced cycle times, reduced cost, increased sales, improved morale, etc. Our applications provide a workspace where business people can connect, converse, collaborate and commit to take action together.

David Arella, CEO
Twenty five years developing and marketing online work management solutions to the Fortune 500. Former head of Apple’s HR Systems Technology and Innovation Group. Former CEO of NOAH Software, a company he founded and grew for 10 years through its acquisition by Workscape (now ADP).

Richard Berger, VP Engineering
Twenty years leading product development teams. Former VP at Action Technologies where he led development of award-winning business process management software.

Paul Foraker, VP Customer Experience
Twenty five years leading user-centered product development and quality assurance teams. Co-founder of award-winning hypermedia firm, HyperPro. Senior Software Test Engineer at Apple Computer and QA Director at NOAH Software.

In order to extend our development team in response to peak demands, and to provide our customers with an extensible capability to support custom implementations, 4Spires maintains strong relationships with the following partners:

EscapeNotes, provides built-to-suit business software products and services. Ten years in business, serving a long list of prestigious customers, EscapeNotes continues to tackle the most difficult applications and to deliver the simplest solution.

Baroo Software, headquartered in Poznan, Poland is a group of talented Java developers and project managers who specialize in building custom java software solutions for the enterprise. Baroo’s expertise is assisting software product companies in their core development. They also specialize in building medium to large-scale web applications using modern, dynamic-language-based web frameworks. Baroo provides 4Spires with extensible development resources in Java technologies.

IOTAP is a software development shop with offices in Reston, Virginia and Mumbai, India. Their team of developers, including fully certified Microsoft developers, has a core competency in the development and maintenance of distributed, enterprise-wide applications in Internet/Intranet technologies and mission critical web and n-tier applications. They also have particular expertise in CRM applications and web content management. IOTAP provides 4Spires with extensible product development and maintenance services on the Microsoft technology stack.

Lode Coen’s award-winning design team in Belgium provided 4Spires with user interface and graphics design support.

Altone Services is a software testing shop headquartered in Cupertino, California. Altone’s highly experienced engineers provide a broad range of services in software application and hardware integration testing. They specialize in eCommerce applications, internet based applications, communication, network and database products. 4Spires’ partnership with Altone underlines our emphasis on quality assurance which ensures our customers achieve high quality and reliable products and services.

The 4Spires company name reflects the phases of a virtuous conversation for collaborative action.

Phase 1: Collaboration between two people to complete an initiative always starts with preparation. The requester begins by describing the context, the problem or idea that prompts their request. The more background the performer knows, the more likely they are to provide a response that satisfies the requester’s concerns. This is the step that INSPIRES the whole conversation, and it concludes with a clear and specific request being made to the performer.

Phase 2: Next, it’s the performer’s turn to respond and say whether they agree to deliver on the request. They can also decline or make a counter offer. The two people are negotiating and making clear what the performer can commit to; they CONSPIRE to craft an agreement. This stage ends with the performer making a clear commitment.

Phase 3: This is the delivery stage. Having made a commitment for a certain delivery on a certain date, the performer is now engaged in doing the work. Figuratively, they are PERSPIRING. The performer has the lead role in this stage, but both parties share in the dialog regarding work in progress. This stage ends when the performer makes the delivery.

Phase 4: In order to close the loop and complete the conversation, the requester must acknowledge the delivery and provide an expression of satisfaction back to the performer. Both parties ASPIRE to have satisfied the requester’s original concerns AND to have built a foundation of mutual trust that will enhance their relationship and their next conversation.

These same four phases also describe the “conversation” we strive to have with our customers.

If your organization suffers any of these concerns:

• You lose track of the commitments people have made to you and those you have made to others;
• Your email system is just not cutting it as a way to follow up and manage critical deliveries;
• You are unsatisfied with your organization’s ability to execute;
• Your projects are not coming in on time or on budget; or
• Coordination among your departments is not what it should be…