Applying agent technology to software process modeling and process-centered software engineering environment

The software processes can be analyzed, designed, and maintained as if it is a piece of software. This view enables the application of software engineering technologies to software process modeling (SPM) and process-centered software engineering environment (PSEE). One reason for the relatively few applications of SPMs and PSEEs technologies in the software industry is that traditional software engineering technologies applied to the SPMs and PSEEs are not suitable for modeling software processes which are human-centered. This paper proposes an approach for applying agent technology, which has been accepted as a novel software engineering paradigm, to SPM and PSEE. In this approach, software processes are viewed as the collaboration of a group of process agents that know how to manage the software development activities and can act in the way software developers go about planning, enacting and reflecting on their work. An agent-based PSEE for enacting software processes under the proposed approach is also given in this paper.

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