You can't tailor what you haven't modeled

Abstract

It is widely accepted that the one size fits all process does not exist. Software processes need to be tailored according to the respective context of companies and projects. However, tailoring a software process often remains a mystery. What is the actual context? What are the parameters to adjust a process? What are the implications of tailoring criteria? A systematic process tailoring requires the ability to anticipate needed flexibility early in the process design process, and to express this in a process modeling language. In this paper, we discuss the design of process tailoring models, which we consider crucial for the design and, eventually, the application of flexible software processes. We advocate for a constructive metamodel-based approach to improve process tailoring.