Abstract
Product software companies are confronted with performance failures in their processes for which standard theories on situational method engineering need to be revisited. By developing a knowledge infrastructure, we support these companies with their method evolution by increasing the maturity of their processes incrementally. We first identify and formalize general method increments that are found in an exploratory case study. Then, we formalize common process needs, by developing a root-cause map for software product management and by identifying the root causes and process alternatives that are related to them. We validate the formalized method increments, and process needs by applying them to an extensive case study conducted at Infor Global Solutions. The results show that the formalized method increment types cover all increments that were found in the exploratory case study, and that the root-cause map is a useful technique to model the root causes encountered in product software companies.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
References
Aydin, M.N., Harmsen, F.: Making a Method Work for a Project Situation in the Context of CMM. In: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Product Focused Software Process Improvement, Rovaniemi, Finland, pp. 158–171 (2002)
Berardi, D., Cali, A., Calvanese, D., De Giacomo, G.: Reasoning on UML class diagrams. Artificial Intelligence 168, 70–118 (2005)
Brinkkemper, S.: Method Engineering: Engineering of Information Systems Development Methods and Tools. Information and Software Techn. 38, 275–280 (1996)
Brinkkemper, S., Saeki, M., Harmsen, F.: Meta-modelling Based Assembly Techniques for Situational Method Engineering. Information Systems 24(3), 209–228 (1999)
Clark, T., Evans, A., Kent, S.: The Metamodelling Language Calculus: Foundation Semantics for UML. In: Hussmann, H. (ed.) ETAPS 2001 and FASE 2001. LNCS, vol. 2029, pp. 17–31. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
Conradi, R., Fernström, C., Fuggetta, A.: A Conceptual Framework for Evolving Software Processes. ACM SIGSOFT Software Eng. Notes 18(4), 26–35 (1993)
Cronholm, S., Ågerfalk, P.J.: On the Concept of Method in Information Systems Development. Proceedings of the 22nd Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia 1, 229–236 (1999)
El, E.K., Melo, W., Drouin, J.-N. (eds.): SPICE: The Theory and Practice of Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination. IEEE Computer Soc. Press, Los Alamitos (1997)
Henderson-Sellers, B.: Process Metamodelling and Process Construction: Examples Using the OPEN Process Framework (OPF). Annals of Software Eng. 14, 341–362 (2002)
Krzanik, L., Simila, J.: Is my Software Process Improvement Suitable for Incremental Deployment? In: 8th International Workshop on Software Technology and Engineering Practice (STEP’97) p. 76 (1997)
Leszak, M., Perry, D.E., Stoll, D.: A Case Study in Root Cause Defect Analysis, ICSE p. 428 (2000)
Natt och Dag, J., Gervasi, V., Brinkkemper, S., Regnell, B.: Speeding up Requirements Management in a Product Software Company: Linking Customer Wishes to Product Requirements through Linguistic Engineering. In: Proceedings of the 12th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, pp. 283–294 (2004)
Object Management Group: UML 2.0 Superstructure Specification. Technical Report ptc/04-10-02 (2004)
Paulk, M.C., Curtis, B., Chrissis, M.B., Weber, C.V.: Capability Maturity Model for Software (Version 1.1) (SEI/CMU-93-TR-24, ADA263403). Pittsburgh, Pa.: Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University (1993)
Rainer, A., Hall, T.: Key Success Factors for Implementing Software Process Improvement: a Maturity-Based Analysis. Journal of Systems and Software 62(2), 71–84 (2002)
Ralyté, J., Rolland, C.: An Assembly Process Model for Method Engineering. In: Advanced Information Systems Engineering. In: CAiSE 2001. LNCS, vol. 2068, pp. 267–283. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
Richardson, I., Ryan, K.: Software Process Improvements in a Very Small Company. Software Quality Professional 3(2), 23–35 (2001)
Root Cause Analysis Handbook: A Guide to Effective Incident Investigation, ABS Group Consulting, Inc, Houston, TX (1999)
Rossi, M., Ramesh, B., Lyytinen, K., Tolvanen, J.-P.: Managing evolutionary method engineering by method rationale. Journal of the Association for Information Systems 5(9), 356–391 (2004)
Saeki, M.: Toward Formal Semantics of Meta Models. In: International Workshop on Model Engineering, Nice, France (2000)
SEI: Process maturity profile of the software community. Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University (2002)
Stelzer, D., Mellis, W.: Success Factors of Organizational Change in Software Process Improvement. In: Software Process: Improvement and Practice, vol. 4(4), pp. 227–250. John Wiley & Sons, New York (1998)
Tolvanen, J.-P.: Incremental method engineering with modeling tools: theoretical principles and empirical evidence. Jyväskylä Studies in Computer Science, Economics and Statistics 47, University of Jyväskylä, PhD Dissertation thesis (1998)
Weerd, I., van de Brinkkemper, S., Nieuwenhuis, R., Versendaal, J., Bijlsma, L.: Towards a Reference Framework for Software Product Management. In: Proc. of the 14th International Requirements Engineering Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, pp. 312–315 (2006)
Weerd, I., van de Brinkkemper, S., Souer, J., Versendaal, J.: A Situational Implementation Method for Web-based Content Management System-applications. In: Software Process: Improvement and Practice, vol. 11(5), pp. 521–538. John Wiley & Sons, New York (2006)
Weerd, I., van de Brinkkemper, S., Versendaal, J.: Incremental Method Evolution in Requirements Management: A Case Study at Baan 1994-2006. Institute of Computing and Information Sciences, Utrecht University. Technical report UU-CS-2006-057 (2006)
Weerd, I., van de Versendaal, J., Brinkkemper, S.: A Product Software Knowledge Infrastructure for Situational Capability Maturation: Vision and Case Studies in Product Management. In: Proceedings of the 12th Working Conference on Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ’06), Luxembourg (2006)
Xu, L., Brinkkemper, S.: Concepts for Product Software. European Journal of Information Systems (to appear, 2007)
Yin, R.K.: Case study research: Design and methods (, 3rd edn. Sage Publishing, Beverly Hills, CA (2003)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
van de Weerd, I., Brinkkemper, S., Versendaal, J. (2007). Concepts for Incremental Method Evolution: Empirical Exploration and Validation in Requirements Management. In: Krogstie, J., Opdahl, A., Sindre, G. (eds) Advanced Information Systems Engineering. CAiSE 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4495. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-72988-4_33
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-72988-4_33
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-72987-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-72988-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)