Ken Orr

Leading researcher in the development of automated tools for business requirements, database design, and advanced client/server prototyping, Orr is an internationally recognized expert on business process reengineering, technology transfer, software engineering, data warehousing, and knowledge management. He founded and has served as Principal Researcher of The Ken Orr Institute, a business technology research organization. Previously, he has served as an Affiliate Professor and Director of the Center for the Innovative Application of Technology with the School of Technology and Information Management at Washington University (St. Louis). He holds a B.A. from Wichita State University, has done graduate work in Philosophy at the University of Chicago, and has accumulated more than 35 years of experience in research, analysis, design, project management, technology planning, and management consulting.

He wrote three books—Structured Systems Development, Structured Requirements Definition, and The One Minute Methodology—and has authored dozens of articles on advanced software development, data warehousing, technology management, and human communication. Orr is also one of the principal developers of the DSSD (Warnier/Orr) Methodology, and a leading researcher in the development of automated tools for business requirements, database design, and advanced client/server prototyping. His database design strategies were incorporated into the GeneXus Database and Systems Generator. His systems, database, and programming techniques as well as Warnier/Orr diagrams have been used by thousands of programmers and developers everywhere.

Orr has worked with organizations around the world in the areas of business process reengineering, accelerated systems development, data warehousing, advanced methodologies, and knowledge management. This work led to a number of new seminars and conferences including Business Process Reengineering, Technology Management, Accelerated Application Development, Reusable Application Models and Templates, Workflow Management, Data Warehousing Architectures, and Knowledge Management.

Based on his work on automated database and program design, a South American company, ARTech, developed an automated tool that automatically designed databases and generated programs for most of the major databases and most client/server programming languages. He has continued to do research in this important area.