Enhancing the Guidance of the Intentional Model "MAP": Graph Theory Application

The MAP model was introduced in information system engineering in order to model processes on a flexible way. The intentional level of this model helps an engineer to execute a process with a strong relationship to the situation of the project at hand. In the literature, attempts for having a practical use of maps are not numerous. Our aim is to enhance the guidance mechanisms of the process execution by reusing graph algorithms. After clarifying the existing relationship between graphs and maps, we improve the MAP model by adding qualitative criteria. We then offer a way to express maps with graphs and propose to use Graph theory algorithms to offer an automatic guidance of the map. We illustrate our proposal by an example and discuss its limitations.Comment: 9 page

Processus téléologique et variabilité: Utilisation de la sensibilité au contexte

International audienceVariability has proved to be a central concept in different engineering domains, manufacturing, software development etc. in order to develop solutions that can be easily adapted to different organizational settings and different sets of customer at a low price. Teleological processes have, by nature, a high level of variability. Our position is that the integration of "context-awareness" in that kind of processes increases their intrinsic variability with specific criteria. We propose an indicator typology with an usage process and illustrate it with the MAP intentional process model

La variabilité due à la sensibilité au contexte dans les processus téléologiques

National audienceVariability has proved to be a central concept in different engineering domains, manufacturing, software development etc. in order to develop solutions that can be easily adapted to different organizational settings and different sets of customer at a low price. Teleological processes have, by nature, a high level of variability. Our position is that the integration of "context-awareness" in that kind of processes increases their intrinsic variability with specific criteria. We propose an indicator typology with an usage process and illustrate it with the MAP intentional process model

From Method Fragments to Method Services

In Method Engineering (ME) science, the key issue is the consideration of information system development methods as fragments. Numerous ME approaches have produced several definitions of method parts. Different in nature, these fragments have nevertheless some common disadvantages: lack of implementation tools, insufficient standardization effort, and so on. On the whole, the observed drawbacks are related to the shortage of usage orientation. We have proceeded to an in-depth analysis of existing method fragments within a comparison framework in order to identify their drawbacks. We suggest overcoming them by an improvement of the ?method service? concept. In this paper, the method service is defined through the service paradigm applied to a specific method fragment ? chunk. A discussion on the possibility to develop a unique representation of method fragment completes our contribution

Famille de méthodes: une approche de construction de méthodes situationnelles

Situational Method Engineering appeared with the acceptance that no method might be applied in any situation, in any project. Several approaches have been proposed but there are some difficulties to use them in practice, which induce a non-usage in enterprises. We propose the method family notion to overcome these drawbacks and facilitate the use of method components

Famille de méthodes : la flexibilité au cœur du processus de construction de méthode

National audienceLes difficultés d'utilisation de l'ingénierie des méthodes situationnelles (IMS) dans l'industrie sont dues essentiellement à la complexité des solutions proposées et l'IMS cherche de nouvelles voies pour faciliter la construction des méthodes spécifiques au contexte. Une piste possible vient de l'ingénierie des lignes de produits logiciel (LdP) qui développe des solutions adaptables au contexte en réutilisant la connaissance existante. Pour utiliser les concepts de réutilisation, d'adaptabilité et de variabilité dans l'IMS, nous proposons la notion de famille de méthodes qui permet d'organiser de multiples composants de méthode de diverses façons et de configurer une ligne de méthode pour une situation donnée. Nous détaillons ici le processus de construction de ces familles. La variabilité étant la notion sous-jacente à la notion de famille, notre proposition inclut l'analyse de variabilité inspirée des LdP. Nous illustrons notre approche par la construction d'une famille de méthodes spécialisée dans le lancement de projets agiles

Progressive Integration of Method Components: A Case of Agile IS Development Methods

International audienceSituational Method Engineering aims at constructing methods adapted to a given situation, either by a construction from a set of predefined method components or by a customization of an existing method using different techniques: configuration, extension, reduction, and so on. However, these techniques are still limited in practice, as considered complicated and heavy to implement. In this paper, we describe a practitioner experience of a gradual integration of different method components (issued from agile methods of software development). In a real case of a development company, we have practiced and observed the progressive introduction of agile method components instead of the construction or customization of methods in one go. We discuss the lessons learned from this experience and define different research perspectives

Towards Method Component Contextualization

International audienceMethod Engineering (ME) is a discipline which aims to bring effective solutions to the construction, improvement and modification of the methods used to develop Information Systems (IS). Situational Method Engineering (SME) promotes the idea of retrieving, adapting and tailoring components, rather than complete methodologies, to the specific context. Existing SME approaches use the notion of context for characterizing situations of IS development projects and for guiding the method components selection from a repository. However, in the reviewed literature, there is no proposed approach to specify the specific context of method components. This paper provides a detailed vision of context and a process for contextualizing methods in the IS domain. This proposal is illustrated with three case studies: scenario conceptualization, project portfolio management, and decision-making

Method Family Description and Configuration

International audienceThe role of variability in Software engineering grows increasingly as it allows developing solutions that can be easily adapted to a specific context and reusing existing knowledge. In order to deal with variability in the method engineering (ME) domain, we suggest applying the notion of method families. Method components are organized as a method family, which is configured in the given project. As variability relates to variation points, our proposal is to consider the methaod family configuration as a decision-making (DM) process. We illustrate our approach by a method family dealing with scenario elicitation