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We use ARIS Business Architect for modelling business process and Sparx Enterprise Architect for technical models like sequence diagrams, component diagrams etc. Is there a way to link the technical models designed using EA from ARIS business process, so that it would be easy to trace the business function end to end.
I believe Aris has the ability export their models in XMI format - which means you should be able to import them (to some degree, into Enterprise Architect). Keeping in mind that there is no one true flavor of XMI that crosses between all tools, so it might get you close.
Failing that Enterprise Architect is able to store hyperlinks in its diagrams / repositories to launch other files from, so you could use Enterprise Architects traceability capability from the technical models up to a reference to the business processes which then link out to Aris at the click of a button.
I understand this is an older question, but hopefully it helps none the less.
Has anybody been in or has seen a kind of "Surgical Team" as described in The Mythical Man Month? Have you heard of somebody actually implementing "Mill's Proposal"?
There is a lot of detail about the various roles in the book itself, but for those who haven't read the book, I found a website and a blog post which give a good summary. I've quoted the roles from the website below:
The Surgical Team
The surgeon is the chief programmer and the el-presidente of the whole
team. He produces all the
specifications, codes the entire
system the team is responsible for,
tests it, and drafts its supporting
documentation.
The copilot is the surgeon’s assistant. His main purpose is to
share in the thinking about design
issues – to serve as a sounding board,
as it were. The copilot represents the
team in meetings with other teams. He
knows the code intimately, and serves
as insurance in case of disaster to
the surgeon.
The toolsmith supports the surgeon and builds specialized utilities and
tools as may be required by his
surgeon. Each team has its dedicated
toolsmith in addition to any central
services provided by the rest of the
project infrastructure. The tester is
responsible for maintaining test cases
for testing the surgeon’s work as he
writes it. He is both an adversary who
devises test cases to measure against
the formal specs and devises test data
to be used in debugging.
The language lawyer, which can serve several surgeons, I a widely consulted
specialist who delights in the mastery
of the intricacies of the programming
languages and the operating systems
upon which the software must perform.
The administrator handles money, people, space, and machines. The
surgeon is the ultimate boss, with the
last word on all these issues, but the
day to day management of the issues
and interfacing with the
administrative machinery of the
project is the role of a professional
administrator. One administrator may
serve more than one team.
The editor edits and revises the documentation as drafted or dictated
by the surgeon and oversees the
mechanics of its production.
The program clerk, trained as a secretary, is responsible for
maintaining all the machine-readable
and human-readable technical records
generated by the team. All the filing
and indexing is the responsibility of
the program clerk.
The secretaries handle the project correspondence and non-project files.
We did use the surgical team approach of Brooks' at a startup we set up about 10 years ago. We were five people at the company plus a few others at the uni lab supporting us. The experience was technically great, but it didn't last long for business reasons. :-)
The summer is coming up and I will be having a lot of time on my hands. I thought spending the time collaborating on a project online with several other passionated programmers somewhere in the world would be a great idea. I've never tried online collaboration before although I am used to working in larger teams and using source control, so it would mainly be the lack of direct communication that would be new to me. I would be interested in starting a project with programmers around my own level or (preferably) better and finishing the project over the summer/fall.
One problem, however. Where would I go about finding people for such a project? I'm not interested in joining an on-going project but rather be part of a new one. Certainly there must exist sites online where this is possible? The project properly wouldn't huge in any way. I'm thinking a little cozy project such as a arcade 2d game, a subtitle site, a world cup stats tracker or similiar.
Also, what would be a better approach. Finding the people for the project and then come up with an idea for the project or putting an idea out there and see if anyone was interested?
PS: If anyone on this site find the idea interesting feel free to post here or PM me and we'll have a talk about it.
The Google Summer of Code is really perfect for that (and there usually are very interesting projects to work on):
Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a
global program that offers student
developers stipends to write code for
various open source software projects.
We have worked with several open
source, free software, and
technology-related groups to identify
and fund several projects over a three
month period. Since its inception in
2005, the program has brought together
over 3,500 students and more than more
than 4,000 mentors & co-mentors from
nearly 100 countries worldwide, all
for the love of code. Through Google
Summer of Code, accepted student
applicants are paired with a mentor or
mentors from the participating
projects, thus gaining exposure to
real-world software development
scenarios and the opportunity for
employment in areas related to their
academic pursuits. In turn, the
participating projects are able to
more easily identify and bring in new
developers. Best of all, more source
code is created and released for the
use and benefit of all.
Go check fast if you can still enroll.
To expand on Symen Timmermans answer, non-profit agencencies traditionally do not have the budget to fund many of their IT needs and would probably really appreciate some volunteer IT assistance. I would think you could easily muster up a summer project by approaching some agencies. Be clear that you are offering your services for free.
Besides gaining some exposure to some real-world problems, this may be an opportunity to network within your area. And it also looks pretty good on a resume.
This, perhaps, will lead you in the direction of a project. From there you could try contacting people you know or perhaps ask around at a local user group to see if anyone is interested in collaborating with you.
The OpenHatch.org website exists to help connect people with tasks that need to be completed on various Open Source projects, and to connect them with mentors in the target languages/technologies.
On the Volunteer Opportunities page, you can search through hundreds of open tickets in over 250 projects. On the People page, you can search for others who are willing to mentor you in the target subject with a search like can_mentor:"Python", or search for others near you, and more. The more people that join on the web site, the more visibility that it gets for more projects and people to come and participate, so why not join in the fun?
Why a programming project?
Your tag 'nonprogramming' sparked some ideas. Why don't you research possibilities in your neighbourhood for things like community projects? There might be plenty of organizations looking for you as a volunteer.
Though those projects might not seem as challenging as an innovative programming project can be, they can be really rewarding, especially if you directly witness the benefit your collective effort provides to others. Also you might learn a new skill, meet interesting people, and learn new things about yourself.
Think about it.
First you'd have to think about what kind of project you wanna do.
Game, etc..
Then I would look for a Forum / Community and start looking there for mini-projects.
I however have no particular site to offer you currently.
Also I believe the communities will depend on the languages etc... you are comfortable programming in.
Cheers,
Build It With Me is a website made for connecting developer and designers with ideas.
To find people to work with you on a new project, you have :
to go where they are
to convince them to work with you
Programming folks can be met directly on IRC. Go to a channel corresponding to the computing language you like, and you'll met great people, knowing your language and wasting their time on IRC. You have then to convince them to stop wasting time saying nothing on IRC and to go with you on a new project.
Summer is already well started, so you should choose a small project that can be useful to anybody. People will work with you if the project you propose them is interesting enough for them. Here is an idea of a useful tool that does not exist yet :
http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20100613/web-server-log-forensics-app-wanted/
You could try going to SourceForge and finding a new project or creating your own. They have a large community there so you shouldn't have any trouble finding people to work with.
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Closed 10 years ago.
Myself and a friend have created a startup, but we are both software developers. We are quickly realizing that we are going to have to deal with and understand, all of the intricacies of business.
Are there any resources that can help us avoid common problems encountered by the non-business-savvy? How do you balance creating your product with maintaining realistic goals to reduce time-to-market.
It's like you need to take off your programmer hat and put on the business hat, and vice versa.
My software business was in a very, very small niche market centered on computer aided design of the magnetic layer in hard disk drives (www.micromagnetica.com - please note that I am in the process of closing down my business as the number of potential customers has shrunk to the point of making the business not viable. The web site reflects this point). I have been in business for 10 years and have done pretty well. My competition was a series of commercial and open source programs (mostly university or government sponsored), so, although the market was small, I was able to create a unique product that sold well.
Pitfalls:
Putting your needs above the customer - Customer comes first - always listen to your customer's needs and make sure your development follows their needs rather than yours. Every programmer has a list of things they want to learn or do. Don't use this list a guide for your development unless it solves an issue or helps create functionality that the customer wants/needs. This one point can make or break your company.
Not clarifying your business idea - Put together a business plan - it will help clarify what you are doing. Read the book, "The Art of the Start", by Guy Kawasaki to get the business perspective of starting a business. If you need money then you can use this to help secure financing from either angel investors or venture capitalists. Otherwise, it will help clarify what you are doing.
Not marketing yourself - Do this the following:
(a) Find a good name for your company and secure your domain name. Even though a bad choice for company name won't kill you (my first company was called "Euxine Technologies" and it doesn't get much worse than that), but my product sold itself and was not encumbered by the name.
(b) Put together a web site as soon as possible with a good description of your product. Google will eventually find you and traffic will start flowing to your site.
(c) As soon as you have a working prototype create a mechanism where potential enthusiastic customers can download it and start helping you find bugs. You can make this the full version with a limited time or a limited version with no time limit. I have done both and both work. Make sure that users know it is a beta (or alpha) version of the software. The most important part of creating the beta user relationship is they will ask for features that you did not think about and this could take development along an otherwise unforeseen (and lucrative) path. This will also give you a way to keep your hand on the pulse of potential users.
(d) If your product is applicable to a particular industry go to relevant conferences
(either get a booth or make contact with potential customers) and sell your product through demonstrations, flyers, and the distribution of free limited versions of your software on CD.
Not Branding yourself - come up with a logo that you will use to identify you and your product. This logo will show up on your web, your business stationary, and business cards.
Not Managing your money - initially there is going to be a long spell before the money starts coming in. Be very frugal with your seed money. The money will not start coming in the moment your deem the software is ready to sell. There could be a time-lag of at least a couple of months between when people show interest in your software and when the sale comes in. This will depend on how much your software costs. The more costly the software the longer the time-lag.
Once you start making sales, there will be seasonal variations in how much money comes in. Always try and keep at least 6 months worth of money in the bank to cover salary and operating costs.
Not knowing who your customers are - Once you start selling software, make sure you know who your customers are - they might be different from what you thought they were. When I started my software company, I thought my customers would be all R&D engineers who were doing research in magnetic layers. After a while it became clear that most of my users were the subset of this group that couldn't program, but understood the physics behind the software.
Not acting in a professional manner - When interacting with customers be professional - act and dress in a professional manner.
Creating a product because the technology is cool, rather than because there's a market.
Creating a product because you want it, rather than because there's a market.
Creating a website that lists the features of your product, rather than the benefits.
Assuming that advertising on Google AdWords will work for you.
"Build it and they will come."
The #1 rule of StartUp Club: Every startup should have both nerds and businessmen.
Most computer nerds don't know anything about how to run a business or market and sell a product. There should be at least one businessman at your top level (but watch them like a hawk, lest they steal away with the fruits of your labor :-).
Not understand/knowing who you are competing with.
Not understanding/knowing your target market.
Not including your customers in the design phase.
Not spending enough time gathering product requirements.
Spending too much time gathering product requirements (analysis paralysis).
Not enough marketing.
Have a strong team so you can trust the people you hire to do their job.
Be prepared to do whatever it takes to succeed (ethically of course).
Not having a direction (business plan).
Not having goals or having unreachable goals.
Not understanding cash flow. There are a vast number of profitable businesses who do not succeed because of clash flow issues. Just because you sold a 1000 units doesn't mean you can afford to pay your staff and or other expenses. As I have heard it before "Cash is king!"
These are just some things that might get in your way. I would recommend not only worying about the business side, but worry about what are reasons software projects fail. There are numerous books about how to collect requirements, produce quality code, testing code (e.g. TDD), project methodolgies (e.g. XP, Agile, ...), and many more topics.
Your startup will likely fail if you can't deliver a product or if you can't deliver a product that doesn't solve the problem.
Finally, it is hard to judge success if you don't define what it means to succeed. Is it staying in business, doubling your revenue in 1 year, breaking the $250,000 mark, or doubling your staff size. You need to define what it means to succeed not only in your business, but with each product you create.
Do your homework. If you are in the US, the small business association is a good place to find resources.
Trying to be all things to all people.
Often in trying to create a product that appeals the everyone, the product becomes so general that really no one can get excited about it.
In my opinion, it's better to target your product to a niche community of people with a very specific need and then fill that need better than anyone else.
Here's a common pitfall, but it's not restricted to just small companies: Lack of diversity in the management. The kind of diversity that's important is diversity of experience. I've seen a couple small companies that suffered from this pitfall. They can often go along for a while making good decisions. The problem is that it's almost impossible for them to tell when they're making bad decisions. This doesn't necessarily mean that they'll fail, it just weakens them to varying degrees.
Company Development - in the software industry you can make a lot of money (respectively to other trades) in a very short-time. most people tend to get greedy and want more money so the accept more projects and hire lots of people - but they don't develop their infrastructure, their communication-lines, their responsibilities, their developers etc. Because it costs money and you don't have a direct benefit from it and you lose your cool "flat-hierarchy-everyone-is-a-boss"-image (which is not the case anyhow)
I myself witnessed two promising start-ups fail because the grew way too fast.
So keep an eye on that one.
Shiny! Don't let developers chase the latest shiny thing on the internet that catches their attention. Keep developers focused on the core strategic needs of the company instead of steering your product in different directions as their interest is caught by other things.
There's a blog full of tips at OnStartups. A few recent, relevant posts: learn from the underpants gnomes: have a business model, and here are some marketing tips. The author is a developer-entrepreneur himself, which sounds like exactly your perspective.
Update: Dharmesh just set up a StackOverflow-powered site for just this sort of question: http://answers.onstartups.com/
Make sure you know your target users and their needs.
I worked in a really cool startup where we thought we had a great product, but we were unable to generate that great user story to really demonstrate how our product filled some need for them. This shortcoming prevented them from "connecting" with our product in an exciting way.
In my opinion, the disconnect was due to the fact that we didn't know our target users and understand their problems as well as we should have.
Sales Sales and More Sales. Plus a willingness to release before the code is "perfect" and release features incrementally. There is actually a pretty good Hanselminutes about this very topic and this very site (http://www.hanselminutes.com/default.aspx?showID=152)
Not having some people on the team with different ideas/backgrounds/personalities.
If everyone is always agreeing with each other all the time, and there isn't any friction, you aren't going to get anything done. Oh, you might be alright for a while, but if everyone thinks the same way, when you get stuck (and you will), you will stay stuck. When you're on a roll, a curveball is a distraction; when you're stuck in a rut, or up against a wall, a curveball can get you moving in a different direction. It might be the wrong direction, but at least it's a direction.
Not having enough knowledge and experience in marketing. Although selling a good product is easy.
The problem is what I call IBM OS 2- geniuses build a very good product but the product is not marketed well nor tailored to effectively massage the ears of buyers. I despise some things about business workers like short-term thinkings, perfering quick-and-dirty developers over slow-but-great developers and other issues- but they are the ones who make money and drive software into customers' hands. If a start-up does not have developers who can function effectively work with business issues- then it need to go get someone who can. Failure to do so make is what made Windows 95 a hit and IBM's OS 2 a dinosaur.
Not having a specific market in mind when developing a product. A couple of places where I worked tried to do anything and everything which lead to not enough effort on one market to get profitable first so the business could still be running.
Micro ISV links has some links that were shown in a top secret presentation I attended a little while back that may also be useful.
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I have a challenge I need some input on.
I am currently recruiting programmers for a new development department. I am looking for people that are brilliant at their work – so brilliant that they might “lack” some other things that I normally would require them to have (e.g. speaking Norwegian and (to be honest) – social skills in order to be able to meet the customer (I’ve worked with several of them before :) )).
My issue is in regards to communication between the client (customer) and the development team.
Background: We have a strategy of becoming our customers extended development department over the next two years. E.g. they consider us as their own department just sitting somewhere else. While we are on our way towards this target, we will have to make money on smaller projects. The work is there, so I am not afraid that we will not manage to stay alive.
But – we all know that good communication with the customer is one of the key elements on providing the customer with what they actually want (we are scrumming by the way) instead of something else. How do I manage to do this with people that do not speak the language, or again, does not even have the skills to communicate with the customer (you all know someone very bright that is going into deep technical issues with a customer that hardly knows the difference between Firefox & Opera)?
I have landed on a solution where I will be the interface towards the customer, the customer will join in on planning sessions, etc., and where the team will still do the demo. But in regards to continuous communication (daily) between the dev team and the customer, I will be the one doing the comms.
I know that this is not the optimal solution – being a middle man a lot of information can disappear between the customer, me and the team. Have anyone been in a similar situation?
Create a wiki. Create a page for your customer which contains pictures, business information, things to look out for, etc.
Have everyone contribute to the wiki, including the customer.
As time goes on, this page (or pages if you split the information on numerous pages) will allow
new developers to understand the customer faster
see the possible problems that may arise
your developers would contribute to the wiki since they have a tangible documentation where everyone can see how much they have contributed to the customer.
make the customer feel as if he is part of the development process
since the wiki is, by effect, a collaboration document, a common language will appear between everyone. It might not be the same as speaking your customer's language, but it will be a combination of your customer's and developer's language.
We've had a somewhat similar situation when we did "Beta programs" for select customers. When the customers had questions, they could only turn to the developers at that stage of the project because e.g. the helpdesk was not yet familiar with the new features.
We also used a "middle man" for doingt the communication with the customer and then passing it on to the developers, and this has worked quite well for us. What were the advantages? The customer alsways knew exactly whom to contact, the communication was consistent, some on the simpler questions could be answered without the need to "bug" the development team at all while some more difficult questions could be "boiled down" from a superfluous explanation to the real problem before handing the question over to the developers, both giving the developers more time to concentrate on what they do best.
Of course, if you want this to work, you'll have to make sure you pass on information between development and the customer in a timely manner, but I think it can be worth the effort (and in fact, our developers prefer it that way).
Communication skills are arguably more important than technical skills. A programmer that doesn't communicate well may well cause enough disruption to negate what they bring to the table technically.
Having said that, you still have to realize that not everyone is the best person to be "customer facing". You might designate one or more members of the team as liasons to your customers, and have the communication go through them when possible.
The developers should be shielded from the customers. Developers are usually hardcore technical people who eat C++ templates at breakfast. The customers are often very non-technical. A customer asking a badly formulated question on some trivial issue to the developer usually irritates the developer a lot causing at least a temporary loss of productivity. So it's better to have special paid people that work in between.
Don't underestimate the value of being in the same place. If communication skills are lacking, being able to point and say "look at this" can be far quicker and more effective than trying to explain everything in a meeting or email. But from "they consider us as their own department just sitting somewhere else" this doesn't sound like it is an option for you.
Generally I expect that at least some of your developers will be open to learning proper communication with the customer. Involve those developers with the communication (even if it's painful at first). English is a pretty universal language and your customer will probably be able and willing to speak it.
Shield the developers that DON'T want to communicate or learn to communicate with the customers. They may damage your relationship with the customer and you will damage your relationship with your employee.
Be careful about allowing written contact between the customer and your developers. Written communication often gets interpreted wrong, especially when written by people who do not have much experience writing carefully balanced e-mails, memos or letters.
As you build your relationship with your customer, you'll get to know eachother's personalities, and communication will be smoother.