I think if you could build a platform where specialist and short term capacity could dovetail into the process you may have a great idea. If somehow companies that used your service where required to use some standards like say gitflow, and an automated dev environment set up then you may be onto something. My though is if one could rapidly get someone up and running with a code base you could provide a system where specific defects can be dealt with by specialist, the problem is the labor involved in just getting said person up and running to look at the defect/feature. Having them pair is of less value because you are hiring another resource and loosing the capacity of a trained resource. But if that micro-contracted resource can rapidly bear tangible fruit, then you have a product that can provide personnel capacity on demand. I can think of three cases where this would be of value:
1) Company looks at it's backlog of lower priority tickets and says wow we need someone to just come in and clear tickets.
2) Company has a small feature that needs to be developed not really worth anyone's effort of going through a bidding process.
3) Company has a specific specialization needed and no one on the dev team posses said expertise. Such as we need a dev with a security background to implement authentication.
Again the trick to this would be to require a standard for participating companies. In the end it may have to be several standards for the different platforms, but the setting up of the code base and the workflow of tasks would have to be pretty standardized for the participating developers to be able to rapidly on-board for the economics to be there.
Yes! Spot on, exactly - "specialist could dovetail into the process"
I was thinking more for individuals working with individuals, mainly because companies have drawn out processes. I think the key would be speed and efficiency.
For your scenarios 1 & 2, that would be farming out lower priority tasks to someone who could hit the ground running. That's an interesting angle, especially considering the volume potential. It's perhaps a little too close to recruitment/emergency staffing for me.
My thoughts were more aligned with number 3, where you don't have specific skills, you have the benefit of working with an area expert for x number of days to complete a specific phase of an idea.
As I see it though, they are all the same problem, fix one and you fix all three. Granted with #3 a company or individual may be more willing to invest some time, but many times specialist jobs can be small and therefore the purchasing party may, in the end, decide that it is not worth the effort. Reducing that entrance barrier not only lessens the decision making for #3, but the others as well.
1) Company looks at it's backlog of lower priority tickets and says wow we need someone to just come in and clear tickets.
2) Company has a small feature that needs to be developed not really worth anyone's effort of going through a bidding process.
3) Company has a specific specialization needed and no one on the dev team posses said expertise. Such as we need a dev with a security background to implement authentication.
Again the trick to this would be to require a standard for participating companies. In the end it may have to be several standards for the different platforms, but the setting up of the code base and the workflow of tasks would have to be pretty standardized for the participating developers to be able to rapidly on-board for the economics to be there.