Radu Luchian(ov): Projects:
Psychology Comp
CWA: MonTaGe (Monitoring Task Generation)

Most Requirements-collection phases of projects tend to fail to collect the relevant needs and the complete and correct User Stories, because usually managers provide the requirements. End-users (be they managers or the employees themselves doing the actual Work), are often blissfully unaware of all usecases and processes they follow. Companies do endeavor to document Processes, but not everything is document-able.
This results in the collected Requirements being incomplete or incorrect, and to costly and disruptive Project Implementation Changes.

Enter Cognitive Analysis. Simply put, watch what the workers do, and collect the actual Work being performed.

Welcome to the prototype of MonTaGe: Radu's project in Cognitive Work Analysis. A CWA tool for writing and presenting the documentation throughout all phases of a project (planning, design, execution, testing and repeat, in sprints). The system specification for MonTaGe was done during my Psychology Comp, but waited to be implemented during my Computer Science Comp... which didn't happen.

"In a dynamic environment, appropriate support cannot be based on tools suitable for stable, preplanned tasks. An exploration of the ends and means, opportunities and constraints present in a work situation is necessary for adapting to new requirements. Thus an information system that presents users with a complex, rich information context for direct perception [...], will be very effective for natural decision-making." Rasmussen 1994, p.128, going all ecological :)

CWA is great and all (better than any CTA method I'm aware of), but it tends to generate loads and loads of documentation. The Monitoring Task Generation (MonTaGe) is planned to be an easy-to-use, text-oriented data management system, an application of my quest for the Graal of document processors.

If you're interested in its development, please let me know at radu@monicsoft.net