Conceptual Alignment of Software Production Methods

Abstract

From an Information Systems (IS) perspective, a myriad of specific approaches exist to deal with the different parts of a software production process. How to align them correctly taking a conceptual approach is still a very open problem. Instead of facing how to incrementally improve pre-existing methods, more and more proposals that are based on different paradigms or combine current IS concepts in some apparently innovative way are introduced. The conclusion of all of this is that, more than ever, we should concentrate on the essentials of IS modelling. A set of precise concepts is essential to be able to understand what each technique offers. A conceptual reference framework is needed to appropriately align the different proposals. This work presents a conceptual framework to be used for the conceptual alignment of software production methods. As a practical application, it is applied to the OO-Method, which is a conceptual model-based software production method, in order to show how the different pieces of the method fit the proposed framework conceptually.