An Analysis of a Content of a Method Chunk Repository concerning Interoperability Problems

Abstract: The increasing complexity of Information Systems (IS) calls for IS development methods to be adapted to the specific situations of the projects at hand. Method engineering is important because it focus on the creation of new methods that can be used in the system development process with the aim of constructing new information systems. The size and complexity of projects for developing information systems are becoming larger and more complicated. Therefore, development methods turn out to be one of the most significant key factors to achieve great success of development projects. The discipline of Situational Method Engineering (SME) focuses on the creation of new project specific methods. SME is a reuse strategy to assemble reusable method fragments or method chunks originating from different methods. New methods can be constructed from a method repository by selecting the chunks that are the most appropriate to a given situation. Thus, method chunks are the basic building blocks for constructing methods in a modular way. This dissertation have identified, analyzed and categorized a set of interoperability problems for the content of a method chunk repository. These problems have been represented as a set of patterns. The patterns will facilitate the understanding of specific interoperability problems that belong to a specific method chunk. If we are aware of the different interoperability problems that exist it is more likely that we can use a method chunk successfully within the context of SME.