A Multi-Model View of Process Modelling

Abstract

Situatedness of development processes is a key issue in both the software engineering and the method engineering communities, as there is a strong felt need for process prescriptions to be adapted to the situation at hand. The assumption of the process modelling approach presented in this paper is that process prescriptions shall be selected according to the actual situation at hand i.e. dynamically in the course of the process.The paper focuses on a multi-model view of process modelling which supports this dynamicity. The approach builds on the notion of a labelled graph of intentions and strategies called a map as well as its associated guidelines. The map is a navigational structure which supports the dynamic selection of the intention to be achieved next and the appropriate strategy to achieve it whereas guidelines help in the operationalization of the selected intention. The paper presents the map and guidelines and exemplifies the approach with the CREWS-L'Ecritoire * method for requirements engineering. I IntroductionProcess engineering is considered today as a key issue by both the software engineering and information systems engineering communities. Recent interest in process engineering is part of the shift of focus from the product to the process view of systems development. The belief of the software engineering community is that as a result of improved development processes [Dow93], [Arm93] and [Jar94]. there shall be both, improved productivity of the software systems industry and improved systems quality, The focus has been to increase the level of formality of process models in order to make possible their enactment in Process Centred Software Environments [Fin94] was put in to allow process models to respond to these departures. One approach was to assume prescriptive models and then, modify them to accommodate real processes. This modification could be achieved in two ways. First the extent of deviations from the prescription that could be allowed was modelled as constraints [Cug95,Cug96,Cug98].Any actual deviation that satisfied the constraint was therefore manageable and the process enactment mechanism could handle it. This way of handling deviations took the prescriptive approach to its logical conclusion : it prescribed the deviations allowed in a prescription. The second way of handling deviations is to allow changes to be made in the prescription as and when they are needed [Dow94, SiS96, Jac92, Fin94, Ban93, Bel94]. Thus, a dynamic change of the basic prescription is allowed.In recent years, the information systems community has concentrated on the need for adapting and extending existing methods to meet the changing needs of practice.Method engineering [Wel92], [Har94] represents the effort to improve the usefulness of systems development methods by creating an adaptation framework whereby methods are created to match specific organisational situations. This improvement has been attempted at two levels. At a global level, it deals with determining the project contingency factors...

OSSAP – A Situational Method for Defining Open Source Software Adoption Processes

“…For instance, they can be created by reengineering existing methods into sets of reusable method chunks organized as strategic process models [8]. This reengineering variant (hereafter reengineering SME) is founded on the Map process modelling formalism [9], which allows to express methods in terms of intentions, and strategies to reach the intentions, instead of fixed steps and activities. Since many strategies can be defined for achieving an intention, Map allows to represent complex, flexible and situation-driven process models including multiple ways to achieve method intentions.…”

Turning Method Engineering Support into Reality

“…he method des el is performe the paradigm proaches are a d in [27]. Foll graphs with in adigm-Based proposal follo h is that the n r by instantiat pecifically, w M meta-model Method Design Software Infrastructure.…”

Probabilistic Evaluation of Process Model Matching Techniques

“…Process models are conceptual models used for purposes ranging from the documentation of organizational operations [6] to the definition of requirements for information systems [19]. Process model matching refers to the automatic identification of corresponding activities between such models.…”