Meerkat Dev

Introducing Meerkat

While there are a lot of tools for software engineers for tracking engineering stories, tasks, issues, and bugs, there are very few tools for product managers.

In many cases, product managers have to develop many documents and upload them on a wiki to share them accross an organization.

Meerkat intends to change that :)

Meerkat provides a complete tool for product managers to manage the product life cycle of their products.

Meerkat workflows enable to:

• Conceptualize a product by defining its use cases and requirements
• Develop a product by defining its design and its features
• Test a product and run a beta test
• Launch product releases and road maps
• Manage product teams, milestones, and risks

Meerkat includes everything that a product manager needs to document, track, and share about her or his product with her or his team, and in particular:

• The product use cases
• The product requirements
• The product design and architecture
• The product features
• The road map and the key milestones
• The product releases
• The product tests and bugs
• The beta testing of the product which includes customer feedback
• The team members
• The risks in the development and the launch of the product

All those features are provided in an easy-to-use workflow through a Web interface.

Meerkat Features

In Meerkat, product development starts with use cases and ends in a release. Product development is made of teams, and involves risks that need to be assessed during the development process. And, products have road maps.

Meerkat provides the following modules:

Use cases:

• Attributes:

  • Identification
  • Title
  • Category
  • Target market
  • Target user
  • Status
  • History

• Is defined by: A description

• Involves: A product manager

Requirements:

• Attributes:

  • Identification
  • Title
  • Origin
  • Category
  • Parent/Child
  • Priority
  • Status
  • History

• Is defined by: A description

• Implements: A use case

• Is linked to: A release

• Involves: A product manager

Design Components

• Attributes:

  • Identification
  • Title
  • Category
  • Parent/Child
  • Status
  • History

• Is defined by: A description, or a documentation, or an implementation

• Implements: A requirement, or a use case

• Involves: a designer or an architect

Features:

• Attributes:
  • Identification
  • Title
  • Category
  • Status
  • History
• Is defined by: A description,a documentation, an implementation
• Implements: A use case, a requirement
• Involves: A development engineer
• Is linked to: A test, a release

Tests:

• Attributes:
  • Identification
  • Title
  • Category
  • Pass/Fail Criteria
  • Status
  • History
• Is defined by: A description,a documentation, an implementation
• Implements: A feature
• Involves: A test engineer
• Is linked to: A release

Beta:

• Attributes:

  • Customer Identification
  • Release Deployed
  • Features Enabled
  • Bugs Reported
  • Feature Feedback
  • History

• Customer attributes:

  • Name
  • Location

Releases:

• Attributes:
  • Release Date
  • Pass/Fail Criteria
  • List of Features
  • Risks
  • Bugs
  • Location/Market
  • Product Documentation (Attachment)
  • Marketing Materials (Attachment)
  • Press Releases (Attachment)

Teams:

• Product teams:
  • Product management (head/members)
  • Design/Architecture
  • Development
  • Testing
  • Beta
  • Release
  • Management
• Team attributes:
  • Name
  • Description
  • Picture
  • Permissions
• Member attributes:
  • First/last name
  • Team
  • Position
  • Picture
  • Permissions
• Team/Member responsibility:
  • Use Case
  • Requirements
  • Design
  • Features
  • Testing
  • Beta
  • Release
  • Risks
  • Road Map

Road map & Milestones

• Attributes:
  • Date
  • Goals
  • Release
  • Features
  • Markets
  • Customers

Risks:

• Attributes:

  • Identification
  • Title
  • Category
  • Probability
  • Severity
  • Dependency
  • Status
  • History

• Is defined by: A description

• Is linked to: A feature, a release

Running Meerkat

Meerkat is developed in Python and HTML using the Django Web development framework (www.django.com).

To run Meerkat:

• Create a folder named Meerkat with the following files:
  • apps
  • init.py
  • init.pyc
  • settings.py
  • settings.pyc
  • templates
  • urls.py
  • urls.pyc
  • wsgi.py
  • wsgi.pyc
• Install Django and create a virtual environment (see the Django documentation for how to proceed) on your machine
• Type: manage.py meerkat
• Meerkat should run on port 8000
• Meerkat object model is stored in the Danjgo PostgreSQL data store.

Limitations

Meerkat works well for a small team but is lacking some system administration features in order to deploy it on a large scale in an enterprise.

Enhancements

I intend to migrate soon Meerkat to a more recent Web development framework.

Licensing Meerkat

This project is licensed under the terms of the MIT license.