WORK PRODUCT-DRIVEN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY IMPROVEMENT

摘要

A work product is a tangible artifact used during a software development project; for example, a requirements specifications or class model diagram. Towards a general approach for evaluating and potentially improving the quality of methodologies, this paper proposes utilizing a work product-based approach to method construction known as the "work product pool" approach to situational method engineering to accomplish this quality improvement. Starting from the final software application and identifying work product pre-requisites by working backwards through the methodology process, work product inter-dependencies are revealed. Using method fragments from a specific methodology (here, MOBMAS), we use this backward chaining approach to effectively recreate that methodology. Evaluation of the artificially recreated methodology allows the identification of missing and/or extraneous method elements and where process steps could be improved.