The process workshop: a tool to define electronic process guides in small software companies

We discuss the use of electronic process guides in software engineering projects. We then present existing methods for constructing electronic process guides by defining a set of common processes for a company. Several approaches from the software engineering and management literature are presented. We then go on to propose a new method to construct process description in software engineering: using process workshops as a tool to reach consensus on work practice. In defining processes, we have found it effective to involve software developers - in order to get simple, realistic descriptions with accurate detail and ensure company commitment in an efficient manner. We describe our workshop-oriented method to define processes, which we have been using in small software companies, and show examples of results. We give a brief description of a case study where we defined processes and helped construct an electronic process guide in a small software company in Norway.