CONFIGURING SITUATIONAL SPECIFIC METHODS

Abstract

Method engineering models and techniques have been extensively used for turning traditional methods into project-specific methods. However, it is increasingly being recognized that there exists a ‘dynamic’ and ‘light-weight’ methodology as well. These methodologies are popularly addressed as an agile methodology. Agile methodologies are gaining importance in many organisations. The thesis addresses the issue of providing project-specific methods for both traditional paradigm and agile paradigm. The solution starts by providing a decision support system that helps to predict the appropriate methodological model for the current project. The Decision support system based on the defined the set of weighted project characteristics along with the project-specific input metrics for these project characteristics. Further, thesis move towards the method configuration process for providing project-specific methods for both traditional paradigm and agile paradigm. The proposed method configuration process is analogous to system configuration. The system configuration is based on the construction of a ‘configurable system model’ that represents the essential system concepts and the interrelationship between these. Similarly, method configuration processes based on ‘configurable methods’ having as essentiality attribute. The process starts by developing a configurable Metamodel capable enough to model the concepts of the configurable method. The configurable Metamodel is an instantiation of decisional Metamodel that is an instantiation of generic Metamodel. Therefore, the proposed Metamodel is an instantiation of the generic model. Now just as the system configuration process yields a family of configured methods so also the method configuration process produces a family of methods. Further, the process was validated with the help of case studies in different domains.