Implementing a process asset library focused on IT service capacity management

Una forma de mejorar la calidad en las organizaciones es mejorar sus procesos, por lo que mantener el conocimiento de estos procesos (activos) es vital para cualquier organización. Un modo de organizar estos activos es a través de la biblioteca de activos de proceso (Process Asset Lybrary, PAL), aunque para la creación de PAL efectivas surgen una serie de problemas. Se presenta una nueva aproximación práctica, y un breve caso de estudio centrado en la gestión de la capacidad de servicios de TIImproving the quality in organizations is carried out through improving their processes. So, it is of vital importance to maintain the knowledge of these processes (assets). One way of doing it is using a process asset library (PAL), although there are some problems when defining effective PALs. In this paper, a new practical approach and a brief case study (focused on IT capacity management) are presente

Attack of the clones: an investigation into removing redundant source code

Long-term maintenance of code will often lead to the introduction of duplicated or 'cloned' code. Legacy systems riddled with these clones have large amounts of redundant code and are more difficult to understand and maintain. One option available to improve maintainability and to increase software reuse, is to re-engineer code clones into reusable components. However, before this can be achieved detection and removal of this redundant code is necessary. There are several established clone detection tools for software maintenance and this thesis aims to investigate the similarities between their output. It also looks at how maintainers may best use them to reduce the amount of redundant code in a software system. This will be achieved by running clone detection tools on several different case studies. Included in these case studies will be a novel tool called Covet inspired by research of Mayrand [May96b] which attempted to identify cloned routines through a comparison of software metrics generated from each routine. It was found that none of the clone detection tools achieved either 100% precision or 100% recall. Each tool identified very different sets of clones. Overall MOSS achieved the greatest precision and CCFinder the greatest recall. Also observed was that the use of automatically generated code increased the proportion of clones found in a software system

A Reusability Model That Creates Design Frameworks Using a Formal Specification Clustering Approach.

Software reuse has been advocated as a technique with great potential to increase software development productivity, reduce development cycle time, and improve product quality. Challenges for successful reuse include populating the repository with the right type of components, representing and organizing the components in a way that the components are easy to be retrieved, and providing mechanisms to compare the candidate components with the requirement of the new component and to assist adaptation. While many existing researches are emphasizing one or two challenges, this research proposes a reusability model that targets all challenges in reuse. The inspiration for the model is group technology which identifies and exploits the similarities in the parts to be manufactured and the sequence of machines that are necessary for the processing of those products. The Requirement Reusability Model (RRM) is proposed in this research to capture the aspect of reuse that a component can be constructed by modifying another component. There are two major phases in RRM. At the Reusability Analysis (RA) phase, a measurement space is defined to represent the functional semantics of the components based on the formal specifications of the components. Clustering analysis is employed to group the components that are similar in function into the same clusters. At the Reusability Realization (RR) phase, the generic requirements for clusters are automatically extracted to create reusable frameworks for the clusters. The frameworks created are useful for constructing the implementation of individual transactions in the same cluster. Guidelines for adaptation from the frameworks to actual implementation are also provided. An automated system, called REST (a Reusers\u27 assistant) implements RRM. The input to REST is the formal specification of a relational database system. Based on the input, REST produces a repository of reusable frameworks. The products of REST also include a data dictionary and a transaction dictionary. Each entry of the transaction dictionary indicates the name of a transaction, the description of the functional semantics of the transaction, the cluster to which the transaction belongs, and a suggested framework to be reused for the implementation of the transaction

Librería de activos para la gestión del conocimiento sobre procesos software: PAL-Wiki

La mejora de procesos de software describe las acciones a tomar para cambiar el proceso en la organización y así cumplir las necesidades de negocio y lograr sus objetivos de negocio más efectivamente. Para lograr la implementación de estrategias de mejora del proceso se debe crear una infraestructura con soporte a la definición, despliegue y realimentación del proceso y otras actividades relacionadas con el proceso Una de tales infraestructuras de soporte son las librerías de activos de proceso (Process Asset Library - PAL). Las PAL son repositorios de documentos con información útil para el personal que está definiendo, implementando, gestionando y ejecutando procesos en las organizaciones. Las PAL también contribuyen al aprendizaje de procesos por medio de la consulta de activos que incluyan ejemplos y material de formación para entender y aplicar los procesos definidos. Sin embargo, actualmente las PAL presentan algunos problemas: almacenan conocimiento formal pero sólo en algunas está estructurado y estandarizado según algún modelo de referencia; el conocimiento informal y tácito no está incluido; la medición y preservación de los activos es un proceso difícil de implementar; se requiere la definición de los activos de forma colaborativa, estrategias adecuadas de búsqueda de activos; y el almacenamiento de activos aplicados durante el desarrollo de proyectos específicos. Para solucionar estos problemas, esta tesis doctoral plantea la incorporación de técnicas de gestión del conocimiento basadas en tecnologías Web 2.0. Específicamente, se ha utilizado una wiki como mecanismo para desarrollar la solución propuesta denominada PAL-Wiki. La PAL-Wiki se caracteriza por implementar un conjunto de procesos de gestión del conocimiento que apoya el aprendizaje y uso de procesos de software. Las funciones de gestión del conocimiento incluyen: adquisición, organización, distribución, utilización, preservación y medición del conocimiento sobre el proceso de software. La PAL-Wiki ha sido validada por medio de su aplicación en procesos de desarrollo ágiles.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Software Process Improvement describes the actions to be taken to change the process in the organization and thus meeting the business needs and achieve their business objectives more effectively. To achieve the implementation of process improvement strategies should create an infrastructure to support the definition, deployment and feedback of the process and other activities related to the process. One such support infrastructure is the Process Asset Library - PAL. PALs are repositories of documents with useful information for staff that are defining, implementing, managing and executing processes in the organizations. The PAL also contributes to the learning process through the query of assets, including examples and training materials to understand and implement the defined processes. However, currently the PALs present some problems: formal knowledge stored but only some are structured and standardized according to a reference model, the informal and tacit knowledge is not included, and measuring and preservation of assets is a difficult process to implement; requires the definition of assets in a collaborative manner, appropriate strategies for searching assets and storage assets used during the development of specific projects. To solve these problems, this thesis proposes the incorporation of Knowledge Management techniques based on Web 2.0 technologies. Specifically, a wiki is used as a mechanism to develop the proposed solution called PAL-Wiki. The PAL-Wiki is characterized by implementing a set of knowledge management processes that support the learning and use of software processes. The knowledge management functions include: acquisition, organization, distribution, use, preservation and measurement of knowledge about the software process. The PAL-Wiki has been validated through its application in agile development processes

MODÉLISATION DE PROCÉDÉS LOGICIELS À BASE DE PATRONS RÉUTILISABLES

This thesis investigates the reuse of software processes by an approach based on process patterns. The objective of our work is to make process patterns directly applicable in process modeling. The concept of process pattern is used to capture and reuse the proven solutions for recurring process problems. However, this attractive concept has still been poorly exploited due to the inadequate formalization and the lack of supporting methodology and tools. To promote the use of process patterns and reduce the modelling effort, we broaden the concept of process pattern for capturing various types of process knowledge at different abstract levels, and propose ways to reuse (semi-)automatically process patterns in process modelling. We define the process meta-model UML-PP to formalize the process pattern concept and the ways to apply patterns in process models. UML-PP allows describing the internal structure of a process pattern as well as the relations between process patterns, and enables the explicit representation of process patterns' applications in process models. We propose the meta-process PATPRO defining the modelling steps to elaborate a process model in UML-PP by reusing process patterns. To allow automated applications of process patterns, we define an operational semantics for the patterns reuse operators who carry out some tasks of the meta-process. We have developed the prototype PATPRO-MOD allowing to create and manage process patterns catalogues, and to elaborate process models in UML-PP by reusing (semi-)automatically process patterns.Cette thèse est consacrée à la réutilisation de procédés par une approche à base de patrons de procédé. Le concept de patron de procédé a été introduit pour capitaliser et réutiliser des solutions éprouvées des problèmes de procédés récurrents. Cependant cette approche est encore peu exploitée à cause du champ de définition limité, du manque de formalisation, de méthodologie et d'outils support. Pour promouvoir l'utilisation de patrons de procédé et réduire l'effort de modélisation, nous considérons le concept de patron de procédé à différents niveaux d'abstraction pour capturer divers types de connaissances sur les procédés, et proposons des moyens pour réutiliser de façon (semi-)automatique ces patrons dans la modélisation des procédés. Nous avons défini le méta-modèle de procédé UML-PP pour formaliser le concept de patron de procédé et la manière d'appliquer les patrons dans la modélisation de procédés. UML-PP permet de décrire la structure interne d'un patron de procédé ainsi que les relations entre patrons, et permet d'exprimer explicitement l'utilisation de patrons dans les modèles de procédé. Nous proposons le méta-procédé PATPRO définissant une démarche de modélisation pour élaborer un modèle de procédé UML-PP en réutilisant des patrons de procédé. Pour permettre une automatisation de l'application de patrons de procédé, nous définissons une sémantique opérationnelle des opérateurs de réutilisation de patrons qui réalisent l'imitation de patrons. Nous avons réalisé le prototype PATPRO-MOD permettant de créer et gérer des catalogues de patrons de procédé et d'élaborer des modèles de procédé UML-PP en réutilisant semi-automatiquement des patrons prédéfinis

Ähnlichkeitsbasierte Suche in Geschäftsprozessmodelldatenbanken

Die Wiederverwendung von Prozessmodellen bietet sich zur Reduzierung des hohen Modellierungsaufwands an. Allerdings ist das Auffinden von ähnlichen Modellen in großen Modellsammlungen manuell nicht effizient möglich. Hilfreich sind daher Suchmöglichkeiten nach relevanten Modellen, die als Vorlage zur Modellierung genutzt werden können. In dieser Arbeit werden Ansätze beschrieben, um innerhalb von Prozessmodellbibliotheken nach ähnlichen Modellen und Aktivitäten zu suchen

Software Process Reuse in an Industrial Setting

This paper describes a method for creating reusable processes and our experience using them in an industrial environment. A notation and process for creating and tailoring reusable processes is described and applied to the building of a 120 process library at PRC Inc. Initial data collected on use of the library indicates large potential payoffs from process reuse such as a 10 to 1 improvement in the time to develop a project specific process