AN APPROACH FOR DEFINING WAYS-OF-WORKING

Process modelling is considered today as a key issue by both, the Soft ware Engineering (SE) and the Information Systems Engineering (ISE) co mmunity. However, most recent process models are descriptions of softw are development activities written in an executable form that computer systems can enforce. There is a need for process models which take in to account heuristic knowledge to guide humans performing systems deve lopment. We refer to such guidance centred process models as 'ways-of- working'. So far, most work has concentrated on developing and experim enting with process modelling approaches and little attention has been paid to the problem of developing a method for defining a new process model. We propose in this paper, an approach for defining ways-of-wor king in a systematic manner. It is a meta-modelling approach in which a given way-of-working is constructed by instantiation of a process me ta-model allowing to deal with a large variety of situations in a flex ible, decision-oriented manner. Based on the properties of the meta-mo del, ways-of-working are formally defined, with an appropriate level o f genericity, and in a modular way to facilitate their evolution and i mprovement. They are designed for providing automated and flexible gui dance in decision making during the process. The paper presents the ap proach, exemplifies it with the way-of-working defined within the Espr it project F3 and illustrates how the process is guided on an F3 case study.