Design Management: A Collaborative Design Solution

Abstract

Design is more important than ever as software systems continue to increase in complexity, become more distributed, expose multiple interfaces and have more integration points. Design process has also become more complex, involving dispersed teams, third-party components, outsourcing providers and business partners. Nevertheless, design tools have not sufficiently been coping with these growing challenges. In this paper, we discuss design challenges and highlight features of design tools that should help address them. We also describe a new application; Rational Design Management (DM) developed to boost the quality of design and streamline the design process. DM enables a collaborative approach that broadens the understanding of design, improves design quality and shrinks design time. DM leverages semantic web technologies and implements the Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) specification to deliver a linked data approach for managing design. Such an approach facilitates design extensibility, reuse and integration across the development lifecycle.