Software Development Process: An Action Grammars Perspective

Practitioners adapt development methodologies to suit local needs, for example, by combining agile and traditional elements. To support this, we need a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms behind the various software development approaches, with the aim of finding a perspective that is common to all. In the field of IT, it has been suggested that a change in perspective from ‘technology and people’ to ‘action’ might help address the disconnect between artifact- and people-centric approaches. In this position paper, we explore this idea for software development by considering a change in viewpoint from methodology to patterns of action. Actions are the core functions that are the building blocks for software development and are defined in a lexicon. Possible relationships between actions are depicted in a grammar and processes are modelled as action grammars. We represent some common development methodologies as action grammars and discuss insights gained. Our contributions are the exploration of a novel way of viewing the software process, some insights gained and the exposure of issues with popular terminology.