Integrated Tool Chain for Meta-model-based Process Modeling and Execution

As demands on the development of complex software systems are continuously increasing, compliance with well-defined software development processes becomes even more important. Especially large and globally distributed software development projects tend to require long-running and dynamically changeable processes spanning multiple organizations. In order to describe and support such processes, there is a strong need for suitable process modeling languages and for powerful support by tools. The results of a preceding cooperation project show that today's tools markets lack integrated tool chains which actually support the fine-grained and precise modeling of software development processes as well as their computer-aided execution, controlling and monitoring. A cooperation project has bridged this gap. This cooperation project was carried out together with develop group as an industrial partner and was funded by BMWi. It started in October 2008 and has been scheduled for three researchers. The project was finished in September 2011. The objective of this cooperation project was to prototype an integrated tool chain by using a rigorous, meta-model based approach that supports modeling, enactment, and execution of industrial software development processes. Bearing the applicability of such a tool in mind, this approach was mainly intended to provide a wide adaptability of process models to different industrial development scenarios, to define a user-friendly concept of process description and to establish an extensive computer-aided process execution support, contributing to the efficiency of development activities. These benefits were achieved by a high grade of formalism, by an integrated, generic concept of process modeling and process enactment and by using commonly accepted industrial standards (UML, SPEM). The integrated tool chain developed in this project is based on an extension of the SPEM standard (eSPEM - enactable SPEM). eSPEM adds a behaviour modeling concept by reusing UML activity and state machine diagrams. In addition, eSPEM provides behaviour modeling concepts that are specific to software development processes, for example, dynamic task creation and scheduling. In 2012, an overview of the tool chain and eSPEM has been presented at the "First Workshop on Academics Modeling with Eclipse" which was held in conjunction with the "8th European Conference on Modeling Foundations and Applications". In addition, practical experiences from modeling SDPs in industrial projects have shown a rising importance of standards and reference models which are subsequently summarized under the term quality standard. These quality standards are used to specify requirements for target-oriented and effective execution of software development projects. These requirements are thereby defined to address different goals related to e.g. quality and efficiency (Automotive SPICE, CMMI) or safety (ISO 26262 Road Vehicles - Functional Safety) aspects of SWDPMs (Software Development Process Models). In other words, these requirements - often described in terms of best practices - are imposed on the software process definition that is typically described by SWDPMs. Tracing these requirements to the process definition is a precondition for supporting efficient assessment activities and process improvement projects. An additional goal of this research project lies therefore in the integration of these quality standards with SWDPMs with a special focus on environments that requires conformance to more than one quality standard (e.g. CMMI, Automotive SPICE and ISO 26262).