Methodology Fragments Definition in SPEM for Designing Adaptive Methodology: A First Step

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to highlight how SPEM (Software and System Process Engineering Meta-model) 2.0 OMG (Object Management Group) can participate to design adaptive methodology process. The idea follows the FIPA Methodology Technical Committee (TC) one which consists in expressing a methodology in several fragments. Then, designer has to combine the relevant fragments to compose his own methodology. In this paper, we have chosen SPEM 2.0 OMG to express the fragments. The latest SPEM version improves methodology content and process re-usability, by introducing new capabilities as a clear separation between structural and dynamic methodology concerns. Those improvements in the field of methodology specification, are studied to determine their interests in the scope of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) and particularly, their impact on "methodology fragments" definition. ADELFE and PASSI methodologies have been taken as example to illustrate the use of SPEM 2.0 in the scope of "fragment" definition. In this paper, only the first step of the general objective consisting in expressing the fragments, is done and presented.

Software Engineering Processes for Self-Adaptive Systems

“…Other approaches investigating software processes for self-* systems and especially for adaptive multi-agent systems cover only the development of such systems and not the whole life-cycle [34,37]. This means that the adaptation mechanisms are exclusively considered as part of the system to be developed, but not as a part of the life-cycle process itself.…”

“…This means that the adaptation mechanisms are exclusively considered as part of the system to be developed, but not as a part of the life-cycle process itself. Thus, both approaches [34,37] describe processes or methodologies that specify the development of the systems including the development of the adaptation mechanisms. In contrast, besides considering adaptation mechanisms as part of a self-adaptive system, we also lift the adaptation mechanisms to the process level by treating the adaptation logic as a process role and the tasks performed by the adaptation logic as process activities.…”

“…Consequently, we address processes that describe the whole system life-cycle comprising the development as well as the adaptation and evolution of the system. Nevertheless, one commonality between our work and [34,37] is the usage of the same process modeling language, namely SPEM, though we conceptually extended SPEM due to the required reconceptualization of software processes.…”