An Investigation of Software Development Process Terminology

The practice of software development has evolved considerably in recent decades, with new programming technologies, the affordability of hardware, pervasive internet access and mobile computing all contributing to the emergence of new software development processes. The newer process initiatives, which include those which are sometimes referred to as agile or lean methods, have brought with them new terms, which sometimes reflect the introduction of novel concepts. Other times, new terms correspond to long established concepts that have been repackaged. The net position is that we have a proliferation of language and term usage in the software development process domain, a problem which has implications for assessors and assessment frameworks, and for the broader community. In this paper, we explore this problem, finding that it is worthy of further research. Plus, we identify a technique suited to addressing this concern: the establishment of a canonical software process ontological model.