NAVITECT
Problem / Organizing the DevOps tooling landscape is a major pain point for anyone in the IT industry. While there are many blog posts addressing this issue and several interactive web solutions available (The Periodic Table of DevOps Tools and DevOps Diagram Generator), there is no such decisonmaking tool that enables users to branch out the most appropriate tool solutions depending on their input - by telling what are they building, in order to find out what do they actually need and how is that aligned with other tools which they are or may be using, to have an overview of their entire software release pipeline.
Inspiration / The Periodic Table of DevOps Tools by XebiaLabs and the Mobile Growth Stack framework by Andy Carwell.
What it does / A platform that helps project managers to navigate through the wide DevOps tooling landscape depending on the project phase they are currently at (plan, build, continuous integration, deploy, operate, and feedback) and to choose the most appropriate solution to meet their project requirements. They can also predefine the tools they are already using and our tree will branch out possible compatible solutions across targeted phases.
Usecase scenario / project manager and any other non-technical project stakeholder enters the project type they are working on - whether they are building a project from scratch (e.g. e-commerce platform) or implementing new features - expanding the existing project. Based on their input (what type of product they are building, industry, technology keywords, infrastructure / features / collaboration demands etc.) platform suggests the appropriate tools and vendors to support the development and other phases for such specific product. In case their company is already subscribed or partnered with a certain tool / vendor at any phase of the project, they can input that as well, so the algorithm will automatically suggest compatible tools across other phases and won't suggest another one in that specific segment.
The main idea / behind the platform is to map out all the tools across the various project phases so that non-technical users can create a blueprint of entire project structure in terms of architecture and all necessary tools on that way, understand how they relate to each other and which tool combination is the best to deliver the defined outcome.
This platform could be thought as navigation app in a foreign country, that is showing you possible routes from point A to B with all the steps on that journey, so user can choose which route to be guided through, depending on his input at every branching stage.
Target group / Project managers, non-technical startup founders (not knowing where to start and which technologies to use)
Business potential / Navitect is designed to Substitute costly IT / information architecture consultancy services that can roughly take 30-50 work hours (5-10K euro) for the same outcome. Solution through Navitect is being generated in minutes at a fraction of the price (various subscription models - freemium, paid and enterprise). Also, instead of buying each tool separately, users can make a bulk purchase of compatible tools across different phases through Navitect and receive a significant discount.
Challenges we ran into / Diving into the DevOps landscape ourselves and realizing the complexity of this system when it comes to wide array of tools to employ and how would we choose the best one when mapping the technology infrastructure. Huge challenge was visualization and simplification of the project phases and processes.
Mockup Wireframes
User Flow and concept sketches
