Leveraging Context in Open Software Development Ecosystems

该提案提出了开发软件的新方法，因为上市时间和对客户的快速响应是生存的关键。软件开发已经超越了单一的办公室或公司，进入了开放、协作和全球性的开发，向软件生态系统过渡，如：“组织或行为者的网络社区，它们之间的关系建立在开发和使用核心软件技术的共同利益之上”。生态系统支持基于前所未有的参与式协作方法的新工作方式，以定义产品功能和软件开发。例如，不列颠哥伦比亚省最近启动了一项大型倡议（www.bcdevexchange.org），其中公共和私营部门组织在一个生态系统中合作，在开发更有效地为该省服务的产品时共享公共数据。研究一致表明，只有37%的软件项目是成功的[11]。对市场需求、项目规划和绩效的不了解是失败的主要原因。今天的组织有独特的机会通过利用其生态系统中的丰富信息（上下文）来保持竞争力并避免项目失败。例如，通过分析产品外部利益相关者（例如客户或合作组织）对产品功能关键性的反馈，项目可以更好地进行规划;当开发人员可以跟踪代码更改时，项目绩效显着提高，包括谁做出了更改以及为什么，他们自己或生态系统中的依赖项目。尽管上下文信息具有如此重要的影响，但软件组织目前还没有有效利用它的技术和工具。本研究将开发（1）影响项目绩效和规划的软件生态系统中上下文的作用和效用的理论，以及（2）为产品经理和开发人员自动总结此上下文的技术。通过与行业合作伙伴的合作，我们反复研究工作中的开发人员，发展我们的理论和技术，并在实践中对其进行评估。我们的研究将对组织及其在开放软件生态系统中的新工作方式产生重大影响。管理人员将能够自动分析来自生态系统的信息，并将其有效地用于软件开发规划和执行，以确保适当的产品方向和质量。此外，我们的工具将通过总结各种来源的上下文来提高开发人员的生产力，减少开发人员必须搜索的信息源数量。与加拿大行业特别相关的是，我们的工具将提供给我们的合作伙伴（例如IBM），也提供给位于加拿大的初创公司和BCDevExchange合作伙伴。对于所有这些组织来说，成功取决于生态系统的参与和反馈。

This proposal addresses the new ways of developing software when time to market and fast response to customers is key to survival. Software development has gone beyond a single office or company and into open, collaborative, and global development transitioning to software ecosystems', as: “networked communities of organizations or actors, which base their relations to each other on a common interest in the development and use of a central software technology”. Ecosystems support new ways of working based on an unprecedented participatory, collaborative approach to defining product features and software development. The province of British Columbia for example, has recently started a large initiative (www.bcdevexchange.org) in which public and private sector organizations collaborate in an ecosystem where public data is shared in the development of products that serve the province more effectively.****Studies consistently show that only 37% of software projects are successful [11]. Poor understanding of market demands, project planning and performance are top reasons for failure. Today's organizations have the unique opportunity to stay competitive and avoid project failure by leveraging a wealth of information (context) from within their ecosystem. For example, projects plan better by analyzing feedback on the criticality of product features from stakeholders external to a product (e.g. customers or partnering organizations); project performance significantly increases when developers can track changes to code, including who made the changes and why, of their own or dependent projects in the ecosystem. Despite this significant impact of contextual information, software organizations do not currently have the techniques and tools to leverage it effectively.****This research will develop (1) theories of the role and utility of context in software ecosystems that impact project performance and planning, and (2) techniques to automatically summarize this context for product managers and developers. In collaboration with industrial partners, we iteratively study developers at work, develop our theories and techniques and evaluate them in practice.***Our research will significantly impact organizations and their new ways of working in open software ecosystems. Managers will be able to automatically analyze information from the ecosystem and use it effectively in software development planning and execution to ensure appropriate product direction and quality. Further, our tools will improve developer productivity by summarizing context from various sources, reducing the amount of information sources developers must scour. Particularly relevant to the Canadian industry, our tools will be available to our partners (e.g. IBM), but also Victoria-based startups and the BCDevExchange partners. For all these organizations, success depends on the ecosystem engagement and feedback.