1 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 SEMAT Position Statement March 17, 2010 Brian Henderson-Sellers PhD, DSc, MASCE, FIMA, FACS, FIEAust, CPEng Director, COTAR Faculty of Engineering & Information Technology University of Technology, Sydney

2 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 Overview 1 st My “philosophy” for SE and SEMAT 2 nd Some urgent issues in SE Method and Theory

3 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 Philosophy for SEMAT Engineering applies science to real world problem solving No theory of its own - relies on theories in other, more fundamental disciplines

4 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 Relevant established theories Category and set theory: mathematics Estimation theory: statistics and signal processing Measurement theory: mathematics Systems theory : ecology and meteorology Organizational theory: behavioural psychology Operational research: mathematics

5 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 Ignorance of existing theories is dangerous Perils of ignoring theories Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse – a civil engineering lesson!

6 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 Task Activity Process Life Cycle Process Group Step Activity Work Definition Task Activity Process Note List (a)(b) (c) +Child 0..* (d) WorkUnit ProcessTechniqueTask +StartTime +EndTime +Duration +Parent Context 1 +Component 0..* SE has no agreed set of concepts SE has no accepted terminology

7 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 In practice What is frequently called a process is just a set of ordered steps (a.k.a. procedure) Problem with many current ISO software engineering standards. (Arguably a process also includes resources, people etc.) Move away from Tayloresque factory processes to flexible processes that consider local situational context (risks, skills, culture etc.)

8 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 SE – still a proto-discipline SE – today is  an empirically-based proto-discipline  has almost no data Analogy can be drawn with the state of in business and management BEFORE their quality revolutions

9 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 SE Method and Theory My proposal Quantify and codify Basics Methods Validation Methods BASICS

10 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 Start with basics Basics layer has a reliance on logic and mathematics - e.g. set theory, category theory, VDM Measurement framework is a vital element Concepts (the “kernel language”) depicted using formal mathematics or less formal visualizations based on this e.g. ontological structures, metamodels

11 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 Detour to metamodelling (one option) endeavour method metamodel methodologiesassessmentqualitytools

12 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 A metamodel is simply a model (of models) is often the core of CASE/CAME tools. Thus, implicitly accepted by users as being a “rule set” can provide an extensible framework across multiple abstraction levels

13 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 A simplified architecture Work Products Producers Work Units Stages Languages & notations create are documented using produce& maintain perform provide macro organization to the methodology

14 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 The ISO/IEC metamodel powertypes

15 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 Powertypes solve non-transitivity project method metamodel “MySystem” Requirements Specification “MySystem” Requirements Specification Document Requirements Specification Document Document Kind Document Kind Title Version Title Version Name MustBeApproved Name MustBeApproved Title Version Title Version Req. Spec. Document Must be approved: yes Req. Spec. Document Must be approved: yes “MySystem” Req. Spec. Version 1.5 “MySystem” Req. Spec. Version 1.5

16 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 More simply Powertype pattern Resource (a metamodel class) Clabject in method (a.k.a. process model) powertype “instantiation” regular class instantiation Metamodel domain Method domain Object in method

17 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 Part of a possible SEMAT metamodel Universal CompetencyActivity Producer Stage StateGraph Task Practice Alpha Pattern WorkProduct Ensure “Risk/Uncertainty” & “Quality” included Mostly powertype patterns

18 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 Having established the basics How to create level 2 (Methods) Best candidate Situational Method Engineering SME uses method fragments, each defined in to be conformant to some Level 1 definition Ontological descriptions may be useful here Detour to SME - a good example

19 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 SME in a nutshell Method fragments Repository Methodology Instance Step 2: Project Manager Construction Guidelines uses Metamodel conformant to Methodology M Step 1: Method engineer conformant to (e.g. ISO/IEC 24744)

20 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 Level 3 is also vital Engineering disciplines are observationally-validated Good quality data are vital to provide empirical evidence for “good practice” Accept validated concepts into “body of knowledge” (link to SWEBOK) Eschew “proof by assertion” – common today in SE

21 ©B. Henderson-Sellers SEMAT 2010 Outreach Agree and employ standards Propagate new vision “Quantify and Codify” Validation Methods BASICS