Abstract
As a help to compete in an evolving market, small software companies may use an observatory of their course-of-action. The course of action considers the observable aspect of the actor’s activity. Its analysis provides a description of actors’ activity and it can express recommendations concerning both the individual situations and the collective situation. The observatory is an articulated set of data collecting methods supported with semantic wikis and a dedicated application. A case study, based on the activity of a team of 6 young software engineers, depicts some aspects of the building and the filling of the course-of-action observatory. As primary results of this work, we may think that observing and analyzing software engineer’s activity help to reveal his/her theory-in-use – what governs engineers’ behavior and tends to be tacit structures – That may help engineers to establish links between “Project Processes-in-use” and a simplified Process Reference Model and contribute to reduce the fit between a project-in-action and espoused SE standards.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Schön, D.: The Reflective Practitioner. Basic Books, New York (1983)
Argyris, C., Putnam, R., McLain Smith, D.: Action Science, Concepts, methods, and skills for research and intervention. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco (1985)
Software Engineering - Lifecycle Profiles for Very Small Enterprises (VSE) – Part 1, http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=51150
Theureau, J., Filippi, G., Gaillard, I.: From semio-logical analysis to design: the case of traffic control, communication. In: Colloquium Work activity in the perspective of organization and design, M.S.H., Paris (1992)
Theureau, J., Filippi, G.: Analysing cooperative work in an urban traffic control room for the design of a coordination support system. In: Luff, P., Hindmarsh, J., Heath, C. (eds.) Workplace studies, ch. 4, pp. 68–91. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge (2000)
Theureau, J.: Course-of-action analysis & course-of-action centered design. In: Hollnagel, E. (ed.) Handbook of Cognitive Task Design. Lawrence Erlbaum Ass., New Haven (2003)
Ribaud, V., Saliou, P.: Revealing Software Engineering Theory-in-Use through the Observation of Software Engineering Apprentices’ Course-of-action. In: 4th International Multi-Conference on Computing in the Global Information Technology. IEEE Press, New York (2009)
Theureau, J.: Selfconfrontation interview as a component of an empirical and technological research programme. In: II° Journées internationales des sciences du sport, Paris (2002)
Varela, F.: Principles of biological autonomy. Elsevier, New York (1980)
Argyris, C., Schön, D.: Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness. Jossey-Bass, San Fransisco (1974)
Halloran, P.: Organisational Learning from the Perspective of a Software Process Assessment & Improvement Program. In: 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. IEEE Press, New York (1999)
Cater-Steel, A.P.: Process improvement in four small software companies. In: Software Engineering Conference, pp. 262–272. IEEE Press, New York (1999)
Grunbacher, P.: A software assessment process for small software enterprises. In: Euromicro 1997. New Frontiers of Information Technology, pp. 123–128. IEEE Press, New York (1997)
von Wangenheim, C.G., Anacleto, A., Salviano, C.F.: Helping small companies assess software processes. IEEE Software 23, 91–98 (2006)
Moore, J.W.: An integrated collection of software engineering standards. IEEE Software 16(6), 51–57 (1999)
ISO/IEC 12207:2008, Information technology – Software life cycle processes. International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Geneva (2008)
ISO/IEC 15504:2004, Information technology – Process assessment. International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Geneva (2004)
ISO/IEC FCD 24765, Systems and software engineering – Vocabulary. International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Geneva (2009)
Roques, P., Vallée, F.: UML en action. Eyrolles, Paris (2002)
Meirieu, P.: Si la compétence n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer In IUFM de Paris Collège des CPE (2005), http://cpe.paris.iufm.fr/spip.php?article1150 (2007)
Donin, N., Theureau, J.: Music composition in the wild: from the horizon of creative cognition to the time & situation of inquiry. In: EACE 2005, Crète, pp. 57–64 (2005)
Argyris, C., Schön, D.: Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective. Addison Wesley, Reading (1978)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Bru, FX. et al. (2009). Building an Observatory of Course-of-Action in Software Engineering: Towards a Link between ISO/IEC Software Engineering Standards and a Reflective Practice. In: O’Connor, R.V., Baddoo, N., Cuadrago Gallego, J., Rejas Muslera, R., Smolander, K., Messnarz, R. (eds) Software Process Improvement. EuroSPI 2009. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 42. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04133-4_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04133-4_16
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-04132-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-04133-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)