EXPERIENCE-BASED METHOD EVALUATION AND IMPROVEMENT - A PROCESS MODELING APPROACH

Little is known about the actual usage and value of methods in the early phases of information systems engineering. We advocate an experience-gathering approach in which methods and tools can be defined, applied, evaluated and gradually improved. We argue that this requires three ingredients: a process meta model which can deal with many different situations in a flexible, decision-oriented manner; a process repository that links process traces and guidance through carefully defined concept mappings; process-integrated tools which adapt to changing process definitions and current process situations and automatically trace their own behavior with respect to these definitions. The interplay of these ingredients is demonstrated in the NATURE requirements engineering environment.