A Knowledge-Based Perspective for Software Process Modeling

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As the acquisition and sharing of knowledge form the backbone of the software development process, it is important to identify knowledge discrepancies between the process elements. Explicit representation of the knowledge components within a software process model can provide a means to expose these discrepancies. This paper presents an extension of the Software and System Process Engineering Metamodel (SPEM), to be used as a new knowledge modeling layer. The approach, which is based on ontologies for knowledge representation, constitutes an explicit method for representing knowledge within process models. A concept matching indicator shows the state of the process model in terms of the concept gaps for each task within the process. This indicator could lead to more informed decision making and better management of the associated risks, in terms of team competency, documentation quality, and the training required to mitigate them.