Provence: A Process Visualisation and Enactment Environment

A process-centered software development environment must be open and as non-intrusive as possible. Openness is important because the nature of software process work is experimental, making it difficult to determine the forms of assistance that are needed. An extensible architecture that can incorporate new tools is more appropriate than one that fixes its components and functionality. Providing process support in a non-intrusive manner relieves organizations adopting process technology from having to change their working environment significantly. We present Provence, an architecture that inculcates these criteria and realizes them by integrating existing software components. Supporting cooperation is equally important, but we do not address this issue yet. Provence monitors developers' activities, maps them to process steps, and maintains process and product data. Further, it provides a dynamic visual representation of changes to process and data throughout the lifetime of a project.