Practical experiences in modelling software engineering practices: The project patterns approach

Software process improvement in software development organisations is a complex task that can be solved using knowledge management strategies. In this area, the definition and use of process patterns are a proven approach to apply knowledge management strategies in software engineering organisations. One of the main problems for the effective application of process patterns in the software industry is the difficulty of formalising the knowledge about the development process using these approaches. This study presents a framework to manage software project patterns. This framework (which is composed of a metamodel and a platform for patterns modelling and reuse) is able to formalise the knowledge on software development projects including software engineers' previous experience, development methodologies, references frameworks and lessons learnt. The authors carried out an empirical study at Carlos III University of Madrid, where junior software engineers used the project patterns defined in this research work. The evidences and findings obtained during the empirical study execution indicates that correctness of the pattern depends on relevance of the bibliographic references used to create it, implementation of a knowledge sharing strategy among the personnel involved and previous experience in the business areas related to the information systems being developed. The results obtained from the empirical study also envisage that the usefulness of an sdPP (Software Development Project Pattern) depends on the ease of identifying when and how to apply a specific sdPP in a software project.