Knowledge-Based Support for Process Centered Software Engineering

University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln NE

Investigators

Abstract

A critical issue for process-based software development tools and methodologies is to balance the need for innovation with knowledge of past experiences and best practices. Achieving this balance is particularly important for software development, which involves the development of a highly variable product requiring continuous process adjustments. Past work has focused on either creating process frameworks at a high level of abstraction that avoids issues of variance or composing fine-grained activities with process languages. These approaches miss important opportunities to capture and reuse process knowledge as a resource for future development efforts. The research objectives are to: Advance the state of research in knowledge-based support for process-centered software engineering through meta-modeling tools capable of constructing a variety of organization-level methodologies that can be tailored to specific development efforts. The tools are complemented by an experience-based approach that captures development practices to continuously refine and improve the methodology to meet emerging needs of software development organizations. Employ a mixture of empirical studies to investigate process improvisation and the impact of delivering process and product knowledge sources during the development process. This strategy will be used to both evaluate innovative system building efforts and improve the overall understanding of software development practices.