Question:
I am on somewhat of a quest to find a company interested in developing a
"Software Development Portal". I am an experienced software architect and I
am very interested in creating a system that I have been thinking about for
some time now. I have experience in developing similar systems to the one
described.
What follows is a very high level description of the system. It is by no
means a formal system description, just an attempt to paint the right
picture.
I am looking to develop a system that could be described by the following
names:
- A Web-based Software Engineering Environment
- A Software Development Portal
- A Workflow System to support a Software Development Methodology, such as
the Rational Unified Process
- In Techno-Net lingo: "The Digital Nervous System of a Software Development
eBusiness"
The idea here is to model the software development business process and to
create a system that guides and supports the development process without
being restrictive. The system would support the specific processes of a
development group and be further customizable for smaller teams or
individuals. A couple of the key design principles would be the separation
of roles involved in the software development process and "fine-grained"
modeling of work.
Core capabilities of the system:
- Maintenance of higher-level software development artifacts (e.g. Use
Cases, Iteration Plans, Test Plans, Risk Lists)
- Creation and customization of the Software Development Process (as
workflow elements)
- Customized views based on role (e.g. a project manager would see status,
metrics, etc. while a developer would see use cases, test plans, etc.)
- Capture and report of software process metrics in the organization
- Collaboration and Assignment (Comment on an Artifact, Assign an Activity,
etc.)
- Search software artifacts
- Security based on Artifacts, Projects, etc.
Optional/Possible capabilities of the system:
- Capture and report of software artifact metrics in the organization
- Generation of software architecture/frameworks
- Maintenance of lower-level software development artifacts (e.g. code,
scripts) through integration with Configuration Management systems.
Again, this is a general, high-level description. The system definition
would need to be customized and directed to the specific needs of the
employer.
I believe that a system like this is a product of the current trends of:
- A focus on Business Processes in the organization
- eBusiness
- Web-based Services (i.e. code inspection, design review)
- Enterprise Information Systems/Performance Measurement (in this case,
software metrics)
The type of employer who may be interested in this sort of thing might be:
- A company wanting to increase their SEI CMM level
- A Software Engineering Tools company. Like Rational or TogetherSoft, who
would integrate a product like this into their product suite
- A Software Consulting Firm consisting of many small, collaborating
software development teams
- Entrepreneurs or small software consulting firms that are looking for a
product idea.
If you know of a company how may be interested in a system like this, please
forward this description to them. Your help is very much appreciated.
Also, if you know of existing products like this, please post it.
Answer:
Check out Asynchrony.com. You can post a "project" with the specs you
outlined and get people to join your project. You can assign shares to
people by their task(s). Asynchrony will own the Portal but the revenue will
be shared among the share holders.
