A Case-Study about Participative Process Introduct

ACase-StudyaboutParticipativeProcessIntroductionintheindiGoProjectBjörnDecker,JörgRech,Klaus-DieterAlthoffSystematicLearning&ImprovementGroup(SLI)FraunhoferIESE67661Kaiserslautern,Germany{decker,rech,althoff}@iese.fraunhofer.deAndreasKlotz,EddaLeopold,AngieVossFraunhoferAISSchlossBirlinghoven53754SanktAugustin,Germany{andreas.klotz,edda.leopold,angie.voss}@ais.fraunhofer.deInsoftwareengineering,thequalityofprocessesandtheirmodelsisofutmostim-portanceforthequalityofthesoftwareproductsdeveloped.Nevertheless,manyorganizationsneglecttheseprocessesandleavetheknowledgeaboutthemintheheadsoftheirexperts.InthispaperwepresenttheindiGomethodforeParticipa-tiveProcessLearningbasedoneDiscussions,LessonsLearned,textmining,andprocessevolution.indiGohelpsanorganizationtolearnabouttheirprocessesandprocessmodelingtechniques,andenablesittocollectvaluableexperiencesfromprocessusers.BesidespresentingindiGoitself,theresultsofacasestudywheretwoprocesseswereintroducedusingindiGoaredescribed.Theresultsin-dicatethatprocessesintroducedandmodeledwithprocessuserparticipationleadtoprocessmodelswithhigheracceptanceandbetterperceivedquality.Keywords:Distributedparticipativeprocessevolution,processintroduction,processimprovement,processinspection,organizationalprocesslearning1.IntroductionProcessmodelsoforganizationsoperatinginthesoftwareindustryareconsideredmajorassetsfortheseandrangefrombusinesstosoftwaredevelopmentprocessmodels.Especiallyintheinnovativesoftwaremarket,theyareconstantlysubjecttochangescausedbychangingbusiness,newtechnologyandscientificadvances.ACase-StudyaboutParticipativeProcessIntroductionintheindiGoProject1Tosurvivethesechanges,processmodelsneedtobeconstantlyinspected,evalu-ated,revised,andimproved.Furthermore,theyneedtobeenrichedwithlessonslearnedabouttheirapplicationinpractice.TheapproachoftheBMBF-fundedprojectindiGo–calledeParticipativeProcessLearning-istoincreasetheirapplicabilityaswellassupporttheirinspectionandimprovement.indiGooffersmembersofanorganizationtoengageinmoderateddiscoursesaboutthestructure,contentorexecutionofaprocessmodel.AsdepictedinFig.1,theprocessimprovementinindiGostartswithaplainproc-essmodel.Thisprocessmodelisannotated,discussed,andenrichedwithlessonslearnedbythemembersofanorganizationtobefinallyrevisedintotheapplicableprocessmodelbasedoncorporategoals.Tosupporttheevolutionofprocessmod-elsinanorganization,indiGooffersanintegrated,comprehensivesetofmethodsandatechnicalinfrastructureasajointeffortoftwoGermanFraunhoferinstitutes:FraunhoferIESE(InstituteforExperimentalSoftwareEngineering)inKaiserslau-ternandFraunhoferAiS(AutonomousIntelligentSystems)inSanktAugustin.Fig.1.OverviewofeParticipativeProcessLearningBoththedevelopedmethodsandtheindiGoarchitecturewereevaluatedinmid-2002throughacasestudyatIESE.Themainfocusofthecasestudywasthepar-ticipatoryintroductionoftworedefinedbusinessprocessesofIESE.Thenextsectiondescribesthecorrespondingtechnologicalinfrastructuretosup-portthismethodology.Inthethirdsection,themethodologytoenacttheabovementionedlifecycleispresented.Thefourthsectiongivesanoverviewofrelated2B.Decker,J.Rechetal.work.Thefifthsection–whichisthemainfocusofthispaper–isaboutthecasestudyperformedtoevaluatethemethodologyandinfrastructure.Thepapercloseswithaconclusionandanoutlooktofurtherworkandevaluation.2.TechnologyofindiGoTheindiGotechnicalinfrastructureconsistsoftheZenogroupwaretoolofAIS[GoKa97,Märk+02,Voss+02],IESE’sexperiencemanagementenvironmentINTERESTS[Alth+01],IESE’stoolforprocessmodellingandpublishingSpear-mint®[Beck+99,Kell+98],aswellastoolsfortextminingofdiscoursesfromAIS.Fig.2showstheindiGoplatformasinstalledatIESE.ThesystemsmentionedaboveareconnectedbytheIntegratortoprovideintegratedaccesstoservicesforauserofaprocessmodel.Furthermore,theIntegratorallowedtobuilduponoperat-ingsystemsimplementedwithpreviousversionsoftheabovementionedIESEtechnologies.ThesesystemsarepartoftheCorporateInformationNetwork(CoIN):CoIN-IQ(IESEQualityManagementSystem)containsthebusinessproc-essdescriptions.CoIN-PR(ProjectRegistry)containsdataaboutprojects.Finally,CoIN-EF(ExperienceFactory)containsLessonsLearnedcapturedfrompastpro-jects.Fig.2.InformationflowintheindiGoplatformThebusinessprocessmodelrepositoryCoIN-IQ[Deck+01]–whichiseditedandcreatedusingSpearmint®-actsasthedocumentsource.UsingCoIN-PRviatheACase-StudyaboutParticipativeProcessIntroductionintheindiGoProject3Integrator,ausercanselecttheprojectthathe/sheiscurrentlyworkingonorwhichisofotherrelevancetohim/her.Thisprojectdata–calledprojectcontext–isusedbyZenotolabeldiscussionsandannotationsintheassociatedbusinessprocessdescriptionswithinCoIN-IQ.Furthermore,theprojectcontextisusedtoqueryCoIN-EF(builtwithINTERESTS)fromacertainbusinessprocessdescrip-tion.CoIN-EFthenusesCase-basedReasoning[Kolo93]toretrievelessonslearnedfromsimilarprojectsandprocesses.3.MethodologyofindiGoAsdepictedinFig.3,theindiGomethodologyconsistsoffivemethods.Thein-troductionmethodisusedtoinstantiateanindiGosysteminaneworganization.Howanorganizationcanaccomplishprocessimprovementandenh