Mural: Design Collaboration Across Geographical Boundaries

Enterprise architects want to collaborate with businesses in real-time to design and create models, but due to geographical constraints, this is not often possible. Many enterprise architecture (EA) tools simply don’t allow the parties/teams to view changes in real-time.

Collaboration has always been a challenge within enterprises – and this challenge becomes even more profound when an enterprise:

• Is large and complex.
• Is geographically dispersed.
• Has workforces in remote locations.
• Collaborates with partners that are geographically dispersed.
• Would like to run design workshops remotely.

Mural is one such tool that impresses with its capabilities, including:

• Excellent user interface (UI) and user experience (UX).
• Out-of-box templates.
• Integration with other industry-leading products, like Dropbox, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Microsoft Word and Excel, GitHub, and Slack.
• Security.
• Impact – Forrester Consulting did the analysis based on use of Mural at IBM and found strong indicators for savings and ROI, including $23 million in benefits.

Our Take

A sound culture along with a nice tool pays dividends – but culture comes first; without the right culture that allows and encourages collaboration, tools cannot yield the expected value. If you are looking for a good tool for your designers, architects, and business to share, discuss, and collaboratively engage – Mural is an excellent choice.