Project States

Release 1: Each project has a current state / status, which is intended to give a rough indication of where the project is at, which are currently conceived as Research, Discovery, or Delivery. The project state / status will be prominently displayed in the user interface of the BCDevExchange website. See State Labels for examples.

– Used to identify a concept or idea that is being explored. In this state, there are no considerations towards IP, money / funding, or licenses, and is just an investigation of a topic or idea, often in an open and collaborative way.

– Used to identify something that is in the process of being built, and can be interacted with in some way, though usually in the context of a lab, trial, or test. May have disclaimers regarding use, and may be temporary in nature.

– Used to identify something that has been built out and in alpha, beta, or production, and can actually be used in some manner. Suggests some level of permanency and support for the product.

The benefits of this proposed model are to:

1. Identify what category something falls into, for quick labelling / communication reasons

2. Use consistent language and labels to help create a framework for guiding developers in their projects

3. Help make things safer and more orderly for people using the model, as guidelines and disclaimers can be developed and associated based on their current state in the model

4. Provide a (very) high level SDLC (though projects may move from one state to another freely), that can be used to help communicate the current state of a resource or project

5. Let people know what others are working on, to prevent duplicate effort, or to gain collaborators, elicit input, or increase awareness

Future State: Changes in a project status could be announced on BCDevExchange main page to help raise awareness.

###BCDevExchange as a Project

Release 1: This idea of a Project State / Status will be applied to aspects of BCDevExchange itself, and used to label ideas and functionality that are on the roadmap / backlog for the website itself. In a way, the development activities for BCDevExchange would consume and be supported by the framework that BCDevExchange is trying to create and facilitate.

In support of the principles of open development and co-creation, it is proposed that the BCDevExchange website be enhanced to not only include functionality and content in the Delivery state, but also allow for the inclusion and sharing of functionality and content that is in the Discovery state (and possibly even the Research state in some cases, such as content). This option may (will?) only be available to users who have signed up with the BCDevExchange, who will then be presented with optional functionality allowing them to switch between the Delivery (Normal) (final, polished state) and Discovery (Lab) (in progress, figuring stuff out, possibly full of disclaimers) states. Users should be able to switch between these states at any time after logging in. When entering the Lab state, the site will provide a message warning to the user that they are entering the Lab, provide any required disclaimers, an overview of the state concepts used in the Lab, and possibly a ‘what’s new in the Lab’ summary.

When interacting with the BCDevExchange website in the Lab state mode, the current state of each page or function should be clearly displayed to the user at all times, through the display of the appropriate state tag (Research, Discovery, or Delivery). While interacting in the Delivery state, none of the site functions or content will be labelled, as it is all Delivery state (though Resources and Projects would use the same state labelling, and would be indicated as such).

In addition to being able to interact with the BCDevExchange in these two different states, it is further proposed that all functions and content labelled as Research or Discovery (and possibly Delivery), include a function to allow users to provide contextualized feedback or input to the BCDevExchange development team. This will be complemented through the use of an analytics tool to allow the development team to track user behavior and navigation.

In addition to analytics, we are exploring the idea of a ‘self identification’ process, which will increase the value of analytics data. The idea is to allow users to select the context in which they are interacting with the BCDevExchange (such as Entrepreneur, Developer, or Resource Provider, titles going through initial research and may change). It is thought that this will help guide the development team in creating navigation that provides the most value to future users. For example, users who identify as Developers may be more likely to want to search for Contract Opportunities, while those who identify as Entrepreneurs may be more likely to want to search for Unmet Business Needs (or whatever).