Customizing Software Development Methods: A Process Model Approach

This article presents an instantiation process model for facilitating the understanding and customization activities of software development methods The process accepts as input a method represented by at least one process model that prescribes the set of software development activities. A method is also defined through a product model that prescribes the set of product parts that can be built following the process model and, a team model that prescribes the set of roles needed to execute the activities proposed in the process model. The proposal integrates the teaching, practical and consulting experience of the authors, which is essential to understand and handle usual difficulties found during the process of adapting software development methods. The main contribution of our proposal is to provide students of systems and software engineering with a global vision of a method and the know-how implicit in its process model description. Therefore, the proposal simplifies users understanding of method background concepts, and guides them whereas customizing it according to a particular software project context. The proposal is illustrated by an example of the White_Watch method customization to cope with a hypothetical software project situation.