In recent years we have seen a trend of software companies, regardless of their size, realizing the benefits of having well defined software development processes in order to increase the success rate of their projects. One cannot argue that when it comes to software processes, one process does not fit all. With this understanding comes the challenge of how to ensure that an organization with a number of software development processes can ensure process selection is made properly.

At the very minimum, an organization needs to have a central place where consumers of the processes can view all available processes and search based on criteria such as process families (e.g. RUP) and process recommendations (e.g. team size). The richer the information included in this process hub, the easier it will be for interested individuals to find the appropriate process. By implementing this central place for processes, companies will see an increase in usage of their software development processes.

The next logical step is for an organization to promote its process center as a vehicle to improve processes through collaborative community input. Traditionally software processes are designed by elite group of highly skilled individuals, often in isolation. Without a feedback mechanism in place, there is no real chance for processes to evolve or survive. With the dynamic nature of software development projects and without the two way approach, processes quickly become obsolete and there will surely be resistance amongst project consumers to follow the processes. Organizations can easily over come this major issue by bringing together the process authors and consumers. Process centre can be a gateway for both parties to come together to share and collaborate on existing processes. The type of feedback can range from the most informal method such as rating system to most constructive such as recommendation on the specific process element or step. By having the wide range of options available, consumers can choose the method which suites them.

A natural way to implement this type of system is through the newly popular Web 2.0 technologies known as the second generation of web-based communities and collaboration tools. This trend in technology and industry addresses the need for collaborative way for the entire organization to work together towards evolving their software development processes and ultimately to increase the success rate of projects. I am pleased to say that we are currently working on a process portal based on Web 2.0 technology which is complimentory to IRIS Process Author. Stay tuned for more blogs regarding IRIS Process Central.

Last 5 posts by Negin Hodaie

• IRIS Process Central Sandbox is now available - November 16th, 2007
• Lack of Project Management Support in Team Concert - October 26th, 2007

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2007 at 4:46 pm and is filed under Products, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.