A uniform model for coordinating software development activities

This paper presents a model for supporting and coordinating distributed software process enactment by both human and computerized agents. Enactment is supported by a general process support system (PSS), which implements the coordination model presented in this paper. The model includes abstractions of activities, artifacts, agents and their behavior and relationships. Automatic enactment, i.e., invoking tools and requesting operations from them, is supported by several techniques, e.g., tool invocation servers or callbacks to the client. Parameterized finite state machines are used to coordinate the activities and the agents performing the work. The prototype system will be evaluated in industrial pilot projects performed in cooperation with several Finnish software houses.