Using metadata to drive the modern software development organization.

Metadata Strategy Advisors (MSA) helps organizations modernize their software development practices by using metadata to manage their software assets and processes. Using metadata enables the organization to evolve into a “Semantic Enterprise” in the future. The use of metadata primarily addresses cross project concerns, but requires a solid foundation based on effective project teams.

Project Level Concerns

Effective project teams are the foundation of the software development organization. Any efforts to build enterprise-level capabilities depend on effective project teams as the projects will be more interdependent.

The funded project is the agent of change in the software development organization. At the end of the day, projects are where the money goes and where the applications get built. Ensuring that things are in order at the project level is job one when evolving/modernizing the software development organization.

Are your projects consistently:

• building the applications their customers want?

• using defined and documented software development processes?

• delivering on schedule?

• delivering high quality applications?

• building applications that are easily maintained and enhanced?

• effectively managing change (assets, requirements, defects...)?

• sharing and utilizing successful best practices with others?

• can you measure any of it? (metrics in place?)

MSA can perform assessments of your project teams to identify their strengths, as well as, opportunities for improvement. The assessment includes recommendations to address weak areas.

Enterprise Level (Cross Project) Concerns

Building on the foundation of the effective project teams, cross-project initiatives can now be addressed. The goal is for projects to utilize existing software assets (services, components, etc.) and also contribute new software assets to the organization's software asset portfolio. The software asset portfolio is driven by the target architecture for the organization. A service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a good combination with a software asset management strategy.

The software asset portfolio becomes an important part of the project planning process. Understanding which assets are already available facilitates more accurate project budgeting and planning. Project contributions to the software asset portfolio are also identified. Metrics and chain of evidence also need to be addressed; are the projects meeting the organizations tactical and strategic goals?

Although the effective project team is the foundation on which to start, from the enterprise view, consistency between project teams is important. As teams use assets from the portfolio, consistent supporting artifacts, such as documentation, become more important. To this end, the project teams must evolve to a common software development process based on the existing successful best practices in the organization.

MSA can perform assessments to identify the current state of your organization's cross-project capabilities and recommend a strategy to move forward.

The Semantic Enterprise

Building on solid enterprise-level capabilities, the semantic organization uses metadata, such as ontologies, to fully describe things like the organization, its processes, its assets, and the business domain. Such rich descriptions facilitate the use of emerging technologies such as reasoners and inference engines to make better and faster decisions, identify inconsistencies, and better understand the business.

MSA can help with you with taxonomy and ontology development.

The Resource

Mark Dutra, the principal service provider for MSA has over 20 years experience in the software development industry. Mark has worked on both software development teams and in the field as a consultant. This background provides a broad understanding of software development organizations and the issues they face. Your interaction with MSA will be with a seasoned software professional, not with a junior engineer who performs canned assessments and evaluations. It is also worth mentioning that MSA is not a software product or tool vendor. All services are provided with the best interests of the customer in mind, not to sell you some software product. Mark has worked on the OMG's RAS, KDM and ODM specifications. A high-level summary of Mark's experience is below:

1985 – 1988 : Software Engineer – Tiburon Systems (design and write the code)

1989 – 1993 : Software Support Engineer – Rational Software (release and support the code)

1994 – 1997 : Manager, Rational Rose Development – Rational Software (lead development of a product)

1998 – 2000 : Software Architecture Specialist – Rational Software (work with customers on project architecture and process)

2000 – 2002 : Software Architect – Sandpiper Software (ontology tool research and development)

2002 – 2006 : Director of Solutions Consulting – Flashline (work with customers on enterprise asset management)

2006 – 2007 : Consultant – MSA (what can I help you with?)

Services rate is $2000 per day (plus T & L if applicable).

For more information contact Metadata Strategy Advisors at Metadata Strategy Advisors