Policies and mechanisms to support process evolution in PSEEs

This paper discusses the characteristics that should be offered by PSEEs (Process-centered Software Engineering Environments) to support the evolution of the software process. A PSEE is a software engineering environment based on the explicit representation of the software process (the process model). Processes and process models are dynamic entities that need to evolve. Existing PSEEs offer limited capabilities to support process evolution. To address this issue, it is necessary to extend PSEEs with features that enable the process manager to effectively and consistently change the process. The design of these functionalities must be guided by a clear characterization of the evolution problem. In particular, it is necessary to understand what kinds of services a PSEE should offer as built-in mechanisms, and what kinds of functionalities have to be implemented by the process modeler as process-specific policies.