Software Process as a Service: Towards A Software Process Ecosystem
Oliver Greulich, Christoph Knieke, Bassel Rafie, Andreas Rausch, Marco Kuhrmann
TL;DR
Large-scale regulated software projects rely on standard reference processes that must be tailored to each project, but traditional tooling creates accessibility barriers. The authors propose an OpenAPI-based Software Process Ecosystem that exposes software processes and their variants as web services, enabling live tailoring and on-demand access. They provide a reference implementation and a proof-of-concept case using the V-Modell XT in the German public sector, evaluating both conceptual/technical feasibility and user-perceived benefits. The results indicate improved accessibility and usability for end users and a workable transition path toward broader process-authoring support, with directions for extending the approach to additional metamodels and standards.
Abstract
In large-scale projects operated in regulated environments, standard development processes are employed to meet strict compliance demands. Since such processes are usually complex, providing process users with access to their required process, which should be tailored to a project's needs is a challenging task that requires proper tool support. In this paper, we present a process ecosystem in which software processes are provided as web-based services. We outline the general idea, describe the modeling approach, and we illustrate the concept's realization using a proof-of-concept case based on a large software process line that is mandatory to use for IT projects in the German public sector. The suitability is evaluated with three experts that valued the improved accessibly and usability of the process and the end-user support tool.