Designer: a tool to design and model workflows

This work presents the methodological and technical issues for the Designer tool in the OBJECTFLOW Workflow Management System. This tool provides to the user the possibility to model and design workflow diagrams from Business Process of a corporation. This project is the result of an industry-university cooperation.Postprint (published version

Supporting software maintenance with non-functional information

The paper highlights the role of non functional information (about efficiency, reliability and other software attributes) of software components in software maintenance, focusing in the component programming framework. Non functional information is encapsulated in modules bound to both definitions and implementations of software components and it is written as expressions in a classical programming language. It is shown with an example how this notation supports software maintenance, with the help of an algorithm which is able to select the best implementation of a software component in its context of use, meaning byPeer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Construction of a taxonomy for requirements engineering commercial-off-the-shelf components

This article presents a procedure for constructing a taxonomy of COTS products in the field of Requirements Engineering (RE). The taxonomy and the obtained information reach transcendental benefits to the selection of systems and tools that aid to RE-related actors to simplify and facilitate their work. This taxonomy is performed by means of a goal-oriented methodology inspired in GBRAM (Goal-Based Requirements Analysis Method), called GBTCM (Goal-Based Taxonomy Construction Method), that provides a guide to analyze sources of information and modeling requirements and domains, as well as gathering and organizing the knowledge in any segment of the COTS market. GBTCM claims to promote the use of standards and the reuse of requirements in order to support different processes of selection and integration of components.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

An approach to reconcile the agile and CMMI contexts in product line development

Software product line approaches produce reusable platforms and architectures for products set developed by specific companies. These approaches are strategic in nature requiring coordination, discipline, commonality and communication. The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) contains important guidelines for process improvement, and specifies "what" we must have into account to achieve the disciplined processes (among others things). On the other hand, the agile context is playing an increasingly important role in current software engineering practices, specifying "how" the software practices must be addressed to obtain agile processes. In this paper, we carry out a preliminary analysis for reconciling agility and maturity models in software product line domain, taking advantage of both.Postprint (published version

Putting non-functional requirements into software architecture

This paper presents an approach for incorporating non-functional information of software system into software architectures. To do so, components present two distinguished slots: their non-functional specification, where non-functional requirements on components are placed, and their non-functional behaviour with respect to these requirements. Also, connector protocols may describe which non-functional aspects are relevant to component connections. We propose a notation to describe non-functionality in a systematic manner, and we use it to analyse two particular aspects of the meeting scheduler case study, user interaction and performance.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Reconciling agility and discipline in COTS selection processes

Currently, information systems are mainly built by integrating or customizing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components acquired or licensed from the marketplace. The processes necessary to steer a suitable acquisition are different from traditional software development processes. Among them, we are interested in the process of selection of COTS components. COTS selection requires discipline to coordinate the selection team and the set of new activities that are necessary to support a successful selection. The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) contains important guidelines for process improvement, and specifiesPeer ReviewedPostprint (published version

OBJECTFLOW: a modular workflow management system

Workflow Management (WM) is an emerging area that involves cross-disciplinary fields as Database, Software Engineering, Business Management, Human Coordination. A Workflow Management System (WMS) is a software tool to automate Business Processes (BPs) and coordinate people of an organization. BPs are a set of linked procedures concentrated on reaching a business goal, normally following a set of procedural rules. This work presents the OBJECTFLOW(2) project, result of the cooperation between an industrial partner, the Centro de Clculo de Sabadell (CCS, a software company located near Barcelona), and the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC). The main aim of OBJECTFLOW project is constructing a flexible WMS to automate BPs of the medium and big enterprise, allowing the integration to existing software systems. Several paradigms were used to design and develop the OBJECTFLOW WMS: from an architectural point of view, it is a Client Server application. For the analysis, design and programming of the software component, the Rumbaugh OMT methodology was used. As a WMS, it was designed to support different kinds of workflow applications, integrating legacy systems and compound documents. It is composed by four principal modules (the Designer, the Workflow Engine, the Admintool, and the Client Desktop) and others secondary components. This WMS does not incorporate the latest result in WM research but shows a successful cooperation between a research group and a Software factory, producing a commercial software tool.Postprint (published version

Using non-functional requirements in component-based software construction

The main concern of this paper is to present the author's approach to support software development in the component programming framework taking functional and non-functional requirements into account. Functional requirements are written as algebraic specifications, while non-functional information is bound to specifications and implementations by means of ad hoc modules: the nonfunctional information is used to select automatically the most appropriate implementations of software components (the selection algorithm is not presented here). The existence of multiple type implementations is supported by a process model based on the prototyping paradigm. Prototyping is achieved by means of a mixed execution mechanism being able to operate in the context of incremental software development process allowing the execution of incomplete (partially implemented) systems. The ideas we present here are not bound to any particular programming language, giving rise to a method of wide applicability.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Análisis de los métodos de selección de componentes COTS desde una perspectiva ágil

Los métodos ágiles de construcción de software como eXtreme Programming y Scrum conciben el proceso de construcción como un ejercicio de desarrollo de software a medida. Sin embargo en la actualidad, muchos sistemas software están compuestos parcial o incluso totalmente por componentes COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf), debidamente personalizados e integrados. En este tipo de sistemas, el énfasis se desplaza de las actividades propias del desarrollo a medida, a los procesos de selección e integración de COTS. Existen diferentes propuestas basadas en la selección de COTS (pocas tratan de integración), y en este artículo estudiamos cómo se comportan desde un punto de vista ágil. Concretamente, introducimos los principios ágiles en el contexto de selección de COTS y analizamos bajo esta perspectiva algunas de las propuestas de selección de COTS más aceptadas. Como resultado, identificamos algunas prácticas que pueden dotar de mayor agilidad a los procesos de selección de COTS.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

How agile COTS selection methods are (and can be)?

Agile methods are proposed nowadays as a way to support software systems procurement. Most of the existing proposals such as eXtreme programming or scrum seem to conceive software procurement as an exercise of software development. However, a great deal of software systems are commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)-based systems, in which the focus changes from bespoke software development to COTS selection and integration. Many proposals for COTS selection have been issued and therefore one may wonder how do they behave from the agile point of view. In this paper, we study the agile principles in the context of COTS selection and we analyze some of the most widespread existing methods. As a result, we identify some practices that would help in making COTS selection processes more agile.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version