Consolidating a Model for Describing Situated Software Practices

TL;DR

This paper presents a holistic model of situated software practices aimed at supporting evidence-based decision making and tailoring in software development, integrating various research perspectives and evaluating its utility.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive model for describing situated software practices, discusses its evaluation, and demonstrates its potential utility through a proof-of-concept.

Findings

Mapped Kernel elements from the Essence system to the model

Identified gaps and limitations in the Kernel

Outlined plans for further model refinement and evaluation

Abstract

Many prescriptive approaches to developing software intensive systems have been advocated but each is based on assumptions about context. It has been found that practitioners do not follow prescribed methodologies, but rather select and adapt specific practices according to local needs. As researchers, we would like to be in a position to support such tailoring. However, at the present time we simply do not have sufficient evidence relating practice and context for this to be possible. We have long understood that a deeper understanding of situated software practices is crucial for progress in this area, and have been exploring this problem from a number of perspectives. In this position paper, we draw together the various aspects of our work into a holistic model and discuss the ways in which the model might be applied to support the long term goal of evidence-based decision support for practitioners. The contribution specific to this paper is a discussion on model evaluation, including a proof-of-concept demonstration of model utility. We map Kernel elements from the Essence system to our model and discuss gaps and limitations exposed in the Kernel. Finally, we overview our plans for further refining and evaluating the model.