Software process ontology: harvest, formal representation and verification

Abstract

Software process is a knowledge driven process with sub-processes. Harvesting and reuse of this knowledge is key to success in software organisations. An improved use of this knowledge could lead to maximum payoff in software organisations. The purpose of formal representation is to help organisations achieve success by modelling successful organisations. In this paper, Software process knowledge from successful organisations was harvested, formally modelled and verified. Three complementary methods were used for data collection (i.e. Case Study, Interview and Questionnaire). Four software organisations was used for our case study. Interviews were conducted to harvest software process knowledge from software project managers and software developers. The harvested knowledge was then formally modelled using ontology and verified using domain expert.

Keywords: Software Process, Software Process Ontology, Ontology, Knowledge, Formal Representation, Knowledge Representation, Domain Expert, Expert, Domain