Object-oriented graceful evolution monitors

Abstract

Software development teams are required to produce applications that are enmeshed with contributory systems over which the team has no control. This highlights the need for an approach that allows the developed application to evolve gracefully with changes in the contributory systems. This work proposes an approach to graceful evolution which is appropriate for an object-oriented rapid application development environment. The approach combines elements of Risk Analysis (Baskerville and Stage, 1996) and of the Goal Based Requirements Analysis Method (Anton, 1997), with the perspective given by considering Dynamic Inconsistency (Lamsweerde, Letier and Ponsard, 1997). The approach investigates assumptions made about requirements; the obstacles to those assumptions are then identified. The obstacles are assessed with respect to their impact on the running system and the decision is made to resolve, monitor or ignore the obstacle. The assessment provides (both directly and through the monitoring logs) guidance to the software development teams of the type of corrective action needed. This work demonstrates the approach for a synthetic example drawn from experience in the telecommunications industry for which the enmeshed system was a legacy system. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.