Intended Development Process

The intended development process will be a very low ceremony process that is heavily documented and automated. The general analysis process is based on a user centered design model and a project workbook method. A User Centered Design (UCD) model is one that attempts to solve the problem of building solid software by focusing on what they user needs in a particular way. Where traditional development follows this pattern:

1. Build software
2. Ask users if they like it (also called "Acceptance Testing" which almost always at the end)
3. Re-work the software to really give them what they want/need (also called "Painting the Corpse")

UCD development follows this pattern instead:

1. Ask the users what they want and find out what they need (called "User Analysis")
2. Write that, checking along the way to make sure you're on track

The rationale behind this design method is that a large portion of failure risk in a project comes from lack of user acceptance. By analyzing the users frequently and at the beginning of the project, we deal with that risk right away and can handle it better. We can also kill off the project early if it turns out that we could never meet the user's needs.

A project workbook method is simply where you complete small amounts of documentation and place the "docs" in an easy to access (and modify) location. These documents you are reading are the project workbook method. The main advantage of this technique is that it quickly gives you a framework from which you can "fill in the blanks" all the pieces of information you need in your project.

While these two methods help organize and plan the analysis and design of a project, they do not cover the administrative mundane tasks such as code management, software configuration management, and release management (and others). These activities will be done using a typical open source methodology and in an informal way. These are more formally documented in the DeveloperDocumentation pages.