Reuse, validation and verification of system development processes

Large companies often use standardized template development processes. Project-specific adaptation of templates must address aspects such as: project resources (time/staff), standards, regulations, etc. Adapting templates is a particularly manual process requiring skill and for large companies represents a large proportion of the total development cost. Integrating locally gained experience and updating the template process is tedious work and resources for such updates are rarely available. Fortunately, formal representation of processes and process components enables reuse, analysis and comparison of processes and parts of processes. We use a case-based reasoning (CBR) approach which permits identification and reuse of processes or parts of processes. The formal notation allows the user to sketch new processes or adapt template processes. These sketches/adaptations are used in a matching process which identifies and suggest the reuse of similar processes and tasks stored in the library. Once an adaptation has been successfully used, it is automatically added to the case library.