Software Process Support

By providing tools for process modelling and computerised enactment support, research on software process technology aims to aid the management and execution of distributed software development processes. This thesis presents recent research in the software process area by describing the design, implementation, and evaluation of the IMĹL prototype process management and support environment. The aim of the prototype is to address some of the weaknesses of existing systems. IMĹL consists of a simple process modelling language and tool, as well as a more sophisticated process engine employing some novel concepts in the software process technology area. An underlying service-oriented architecture is the basis for the engine, which is built as a collection of distributed Web Services with the intent of providing improvement in scalability and stability over previous approaches. Furthermore, multiple processing instances with different underlying paradigms are combined into one single engine, in order to utilise the advantages of several approaches. Other essential features of the prototype system include a to-do list facility and seamless integration with third-party tools.