A Polymorphic Context Frame to Support Scalability and Evolvability of Information System Development Processes

Abstract

Nowadays, there is an increasing need for flexible approaches, adaptable to different kinds of Information System Development (ISD). But customization of ISD processes have mainly be thought of for the person in charge of building processes, i.e. the methodologists, in order to allow him/her to adapt the process to the need of its company or projects. But there is also a need for customizations dedicated to project team members (application engineers), to provide them with customized guidelines (or heuristics) which are to be followed while performing their daily task. The knowledge capitalization framework we propose supports evolvability and customization of ISD processes. Reuse and customization are handled through process fragments stored in a dedicated repository. Our purpose is not to propose a new way to built processes, as several approaches already exist on this topic, but to ease the use of existing ones by making them less rigid and allowing their adaptation to the need of the company, the project and most of all, the project team member. Therefore, in addition to a repository of process fragments, we propose a scalable and polymorphic structure allowing methodologists to define a working space through a context made of criterias. Thanks to this context the project team members better qualify their ISD problem in order to find a suitable solution. A solution is made of process fragments organized into a route-map specially built to answer the project team member need and directly usable by him/her.

The context-frame we focus on in this paper is a scalable structure which supports evolution and tailoring by the methodologists for the project team member’s need with regards to project and process features.