Categorising Software Contexts: Research-in-Progress

TL;DR

This research-in-progress paper proposes a new model for categorising software contexts, aiming to establish a theoretical basis for tailoring software processes based on contextual factors.

Contribution

It introduces a categorisation model for software contexts derived from literature, supporting the operationalisation of context for process tailoring.

Findings

Developed a model based on literature insights

Analyzed six documents to test the model

Aims to enable theoretical operationalisation of software context

Abstract

A growing number of researchers suggest that software process must be tailored to a project's context to achieve maximal performance. Researchers have studied 'context' in an ad-hoc way, with focus on those contextual factors that appear to be of significance. The result is that we have no useful basis upon which to contrast and compare studies. We are currently researching a theoretical basis for software context for the purpose of tailoring and note that a deeper consideration of the meaning of the term 'context' is required before we can proceed. In this paper, we examine the term and present a model based on insights gained from our initial categorisation of contextual factors from the literature. We test our understanding by analysing a further six documents. Our contribution thus far is a model that we believe will support a theoretical operationalisation of software context for the purpose of process tailoring.