1. The composition of ad-hoc agent-oriented design processes Miniscuola WOA’08 18 Novembre 2008 Massimo Cossentino ICAR- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche – Palermo Valeria Seidita Dipartimento di Ingegneria Informatica – Univ. Palermo

2. Outline M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 20082

3. Introduction

4. Outline M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 20084

5. Introduction M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  In this talk we will deal with a well known problem: the construction of a design process  When do we face this problem?  While developing a new design process (several new processes are proposed in literature yearly)  While improving an existing process  Because it does not give good results (how do we measure that?)  Because we want to apply it to a different class of problems, or in a different development context  How do we solve the problem?  Situational Method Engineering (SME) studies that from years  We propose an extension of classical SME approaches that is specifically conceived for AOSE 18 Nov. 20085

6. What if my design process is not good? M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  Each problem is suited for a specific class of problems:  For instance, PASSI has been conceived to develop information systems by using peer-agents societies with a classical (i.e. long but well documented) design process  What if I am facing a different class of problems?  I can use a different design process  C. Bernon, M. Cossentino, J. Pavón. An Overview of Current Trends in European AOSE Research. Informatica Journal, vol. 29, Number 4, 2005  L. Cernuzzi, M. Cossentino, F. Zambonelli. Process Models for Agent-based Development. Journal of Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, (EAAI). Elsevier. Vol. 18, No.2, March 2005.  I can create a new methodology for my specific purposes  Situational Method Engineering  M. Saeki. Software specification & design methods and method engineering. International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, 1994.  B. Henderson-Sellers. Method engineering: Theory and practice. In D. Karagiannis and editors Mayr, H. C., editors, Information Systems Technology and its Applications., pages 13–23, 2006. 18 Nov. 20086

7. (Situational) Method Engineering

8. Outline M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 20088

9. Method Engineering: how it works M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  The development methodology is built by the developer by assembling pieces of the process (method fragments) from a method base.  The method base is composed of contributions coming from existing methodologies and other novel and specifically conceived fragments  This is the approach used within the FIPA Technical Committee Methodology (2003-2005) 18 Nov. 20089

10. The ‘normal’ agent development process M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200810

11. Situational Method Engineering M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200811

12. Adopting Method Engineering What do I need?  A collection of method fragments  Some guidelines about how to assemble fragments  A CAME (Computer Aided Method Engineering) tool  … an evaluation framework (is my new methodology really good?) M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200812

13. The new process production CAPE tool M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200813

14. SME approaches M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  Brinkkemper S. (1996) Method Engineering: Engineering of Information Systems Development Methods and Tools. Inf. Software Technol., 38(4), 275-280.  Brinkkemper S., Saeki M. and Harmsen F. (1998) Assembly techniques for method engineering, CAiSE'98, Proceedings, Springer Verlag, LNCS 1413 pp. 381-400.  Weerd I. van de, Brinkkemper S., Souer J., Versendaal J. (2006) A Situational Implementation Method for Web-based Content Management System-applications: Method Engineering and Validation in Practice. In Software Process: Improvement and Practice (in press), John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  Ralyté J. and Rolland C. (2001b) An approach for method re-engineering, Proceedings Int. Conf. ER2001, LNCS 2224, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 471-484  Ralyté J. (2002). Requirements Definition for the Situational Method Engineering. Proceedings of the IFIP WG8.1 Working Conference on Engineering Information Systems in the Internet Context (EISIC’02), Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp.127-152. Ralyté J. and Rolland C. (2001) An Assembly Process Model for Method Engineering. CAISE’01, Proceedings, LNCS 2068, Springer-Verlag, pp. 267-283.  Mirbel I. and Ralyté J. (2006) Situational Method Engineering: Combining Assembly Based and Roadmap- Driven Approaches. Requirements Engineering, 11(1), pp. 58–78.  Nguyen V.P. and Henderson-Sellers B. (2003) Towards automated support for method engineering with the OPEN Process Framework. Procs. 7th IASTED Int. Conf. on Software Engineering and Applications, ACTA Press, Anaheim, CA, USA, 691-696.  Firesmith D.G. and Henderson-Sellers B. (2002) The OPEN Process Framework. An Introduction, Addison- Wesley, 330pp.  Gonzalez-Perez C. (2005) Tools for an extended object modelling environment. In 10 th IEEE International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems (ICECCS). IEEE Computer Society. 20-23. 18 Nov. 200814

15. Brinkkemper et al’s method fragment  Method fragment is a coherent piece of information system development  Two kinds of method fragment  Process fragment  Describes the stage, activities and tasks  Product fragment  Concerns the structure of a process product (deliverables, diagrams, etc.)  Three orthogonal dimension:  Perspective  The process and product perspective on fragment  Abstract level  Conceptual, technical and external level  Layer of granularity  The level of decomposition at which a method fragment resides  Method, stage, model diagram and concept  A fragment can be composed of other fragments and can have relationships with other fragments M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200815

16. Method Chunk - Ralytè et al.  Method chunk (seen as a consistent and autonomous component)  It represents a portion of process with its resulting work products  It integrates the product and the process aspects of method fragment  It is represented using a metamodel (UML notation) M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200816

17. Method Chunk Metamodel M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200817

18. Method Chunk Metamodel  It is composed of two parts:  The process model  Each chunk can be atomic (simple) or can aggregate other chunks  Guideline, embodies the method chunk knowledge to guide the designer  Situation, the condition of chunk applicability  Intention, the objective to perform  Descriptor, describes the situation in which the chunk can be reused  The product model  It is composed of: Product Model, Product Part and Guideline  For each method there is at least one product  Guideline is also part of the product model, it describes how to generate a product M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200818

19. OPF method fragment  It is part of existing methodologies and used to construct new ones  It is generated and stored in a repository with all its guidelines basing on OPF Metamodel  The Metamodel is composed of five main metaclasses  Each metaclass produces a method fragment M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200819

20. OPF Metamodel M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200820

21. Other References on SME M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  Kumar K. and R.J. Welke (1992) Methodology Engineering: a Proposal for Situation-Specific Methodology Construction, in Challenges and Strategies for Research in Systems Development, W.W. Cotterman and J.A. Senn (eds.). John Wiley & Sons: Chichester, UK. p. 257- 269.  Rolland C., Prakash N. and Benjamen A. (1999) A multi-model view of process modelling, Requirements Engineering J., 4(4), 169-187.  Saeki M. (2003) Embedding Metrics into Information Systems Development Methods: An Application of Method Engineering Technique. CAiSE’03, Proceedings, LNCS 2681, Springer, 374-389.  Saeki M. (2003) CAME: the First Step to Automated Software Engineering. Procs. OOPSLA 2003 Workshop on Process Engineering for Object-Oriented and Component-Based Development. Anaheim, CA, 26-30, COTAR, Sydney, 7-18.  Gupta D. and Prakash N. (2001) Engineering Methods from Method Requirements Specifications. Requirements Engineering Journal. 6(3), 135-160.  Henderson-Sellers B. (2002) Process metamodelling and process construction: Examples using the OPEN Process Framework (OPF). Annals Software Engin. 14, 341–362.  Henderson-Sellers B. (2005) Creating a comprehensive agent-oriented methodology using method engineering and the OPEN metamodel, Chapter 13 in Agent-Oriented Methodologies (eds. B. Henderson-Sellers and P. Giorgini), Idea Group, 368-397.  Henderson-Sellers B. (2006) Method engineering: theory and practice, Information Systems Technology and its Applications. 5th International Conference ISTA 2006. Klagenfurt, Austria, LNI – Proceedings, Volume P-84, Bonn, 13-23. 18 Nov. 200821

22. Agent-Oriented Situational Method Engineering

23. MAS Meta-model  MAS meta-models play a fundamental role in the design of agents.  Different design processes have great differences in the MAS meta-models they adopt  A meta-model is a model of the concepts that can be used to design and describe actual systems.  Models describing a system are composed of elements that are instances of meta-model elements  MAS meta-models usually include elements like role, goal, task, plan, communication, … M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200823

24. Software Design: the role of system meta-model Designing (a software) means instantiating its meta-model META-MODEL MODEL M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200824

25. The Prode (PROcess DEsign for design processes) approach for Agent-Oriented Method Engineering M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08 MMM 18 Nov. 200825

26. Method Fragment structure (result of the FIPA Methodology TC work) M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08 M. Cossentino, S. Gaglio, A. Garro, V. Seidita. Method Fragments for agent design methodologies: from standardization to research. International Journal on Agent Oriented Software Engineering (IJAOSE). 1(1). 2007. 18 Nov. 200826

27. FIPA method fragment A fragment is a portion of the development process, composed by: A portion of process (what is to be done, in what order), defined with a SPEM diagram One or more deliverables (artifacts like (A)UML/UML diagrams, text documents and so on). Some preconditions (they are a kind of constraint because it is not possible to start the process specified in the fragment without the required input data or without verifying the required guard condition) A list of concepts (related to the MAS meta-model) to be defined (designed) or refined during the specified process fragment. Guideline(s) that illustrates how to apply the fragment and best practices related to that A glossary of terms used in the fragment (in order to avoid misunderstandings if the fragment is reused in a context that is different from the original one) Other information (composition guidelines, platform to be used, application area and dependency relationships useful to assemble fragments) M. Cossentino, S. Gaglio, A. Garro, V. Seidita. Method Fragments for agent design methodologies: from standardization to research. International Journal on Agent Oriented Software Engineering (IJAOSE). 1(1). 2007. M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200827

28. The Process Design for Design Process PRODE

29. Outline M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200829

30. PRODE divided in three main areas of research M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08 MMM 1) A collection of process fragments 3) A CAPE (Computer Aided Process Engineering) tool 2) Guidelines for fragment assembling 18 Nov. 200830

31. PRODE Area 1: A Collection of Process Fragments

32. The fragment collection in PRODE M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08 MMM 1) A collection of process fragments 18 Nov. 200832

33. The PRODE Process Representation M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200833

34. Applying the Proposed Method Fragment Definition  A method Fragment can be explored from four points of view:  Process  The process related aspect of the fragment: workflow, activity and work product  Storing  It concerns with the storage of the fragment in the method base and its retrieval  Reuse  It concerns with the reuse feature of the fragment and lists the elements helpful in reusing the fragment during the composition of a new design process  Implementation  The implementation of the main elements of the process view.  Method fragment construction is Work Product oriented, a method fragment must deliver a product. Cossentino, M., Gaglio, S., Garro, A. and Seidita, V. (2007). Agents and Method Engineering: a Standardization Perspective’, Int. J. Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.91–121. M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200834

35. Prode Area 2: Guidelines for Fragment Assembly

36. Fragments Assembling in PRODE M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08 MMM 2) Guidelines for fragment assembling 18 Nov. 200836

37. Process Analysis and Design in PRODE M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200837

38. Process Requirements Analysis M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200838

39. Process Analysis and Design in PRODE M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200839

40. Core Metamodel Creation M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200840

41. The ASPECS Core MetaModel M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08 ASPECS is a design process for building holonic multi-agent systems recently developed at UTBM Massimo Cossentino, Nicolas Gaud, Stephane Galland, Vincent Hilaire, and Abderrafiaa Koukam. A Holonic Metamodel for Agent- Oriented Analysis and Design. 3rd International Conference on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems (HoloMAS'07). September 3 - 5, 2007, Regensburg, Germany. 18 Nov. 200841

42. Process Analysis and Design in PRODE M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200842

43. What is Prioritization ?? M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  The problem we face is:  What are the first fragments we should introduce in the new process? ?? 18 Nov. 200843

44. The Algorithm M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  Main issues:  We assume each process fragment instantiates, relates or quotes MAS MetaModel Elements (MMMEs)  We created an algorithm for assigning a priority to the realization of some MMMEs:  Elements that are ‘leaves’ of the metamodel graph are realised as first  Other elements follow according to the number of their relationships  The output is a priority list of fragments 18 Nov. 200844

45. The Prioritization Algorithm (1 of 3) 18 Nov. 2008M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0845 1. Select a metamodel domain (consider the resulting metamodel as a graph with nodes (MMMEs) and edges (relationships)) 2. Define List elements1 as a list of MMMEs that can be defined by reusing fragments from the repository, and the associated priority p: List elements1 (MMME, p), p=1; 3. Define List elements2 as a list of MMMEs that cannot be defined by reusing fragments from the repository; 4. Define List elements3 as a list of elements that are not in the core MMM; 5. While the core MMM is not empty a) Select the leaves Li (i=1,...,n) that: (i) can be instantiated by fragments of the repository and (ii) have less relationships with other elements 1. Insert Li (i=1,...,n) in List elements1; 2. Remove elements Li (i=1,...,n) from the core MMM; 3. p = p+1; 6. While the core MMM is not empty a) Select the leaves Li (i=1,...,m) that can not be instantiated by fragments of the repository; 1. Insert Li (i=1,...,m) in List elements2; 2. Remove Li (i=1,...,m) from the core MMM;

46. The Prioritization Algorithm (2 of 3) 18 Nov. 2008M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0846 7. For each element E1 i of List_elements1 select an instantiating fragment from the repository (verify the correspondence among fragment rationale and the process requirements/strategies) a) If one fragment corresponds to process requirements and strategies then: I. insert the fragment in the new process composition diagram II. analyze inputs I i (i=0,...,n) and outputs O j (j=0,...,m) of the fragment A. If some I i or O j does not belong to the core MMM then add it to List_elements3; mark the fragment as “To be modified” B. remove E1 i from List elements1; III. For each element E2 i in List_elements2 analyze if there is a similarity with the elements defined in this fragment A. if yes delete E2 i from List_elements2 and I i /O i from List_elements3 b) else (if no fragment correspond to requirements and strategies) then I. remove E1 i from List_elements1 and insert it in List_elements2

47. The Prioritization Algorithm (3 of 3) 18 Nov. 2008M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0847 8. For each E2 i (i=0..m) in List_elements2 a) Define a new fragment for instantiating E2 i b) Insert the fragment in the new process composition diagram c) Remove E2 i from List_elements2 9. For each E3 i (i=0..m) in List_elements3 a) Introduce elements E3 i (i=0..q) from List_elements3 in the core MMM b) Repeat from 2. (consider only the new elements) 10. If the process is not completed (i.e. not all design activities from requirements elicitation to coding, testing and deployment have been defined) a) Repeat from 1.

48. Process Analysis and Design in PRODE M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200848

49. The first two fragments in Building the ASPECS Process M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08 Not in the core metamodel 18 Nov. 200849

50. Process Analysis and Design in PRODE M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200850

51. The Process Component Diagram M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200851

52. Process Analysis and Design in PRODE M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200852

53. Metamodel Extension M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  The Core MAS Metamodel is the starting point for selecting the right fragments from the repository and for assembling them in the new process  MAS Metamodel extensions come from:  The need of incorporating MMMEs referred in selected fragments  New process requirements  Not all design activities from requirements elicitation to coding, testing and deployment have been defined  Three different situations may arise:  Different MAS metamodels contribute to the new one with parts that are totally disjointed  Different MAS metamodels contribute to the new one with parts that overlap and …  … overlapping elements have the same definitions bounded to elements with different names…or on the contrary ...overlapping elements have the same name but different definitions 18 Nov. 200853

54. Method Engineering Supporting Tools

55. M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  MetaEdit 1 is probably the most diffused tool  It is a CAME (Computer Aided Method Engineering) tool. It instantiates a CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) tool.  It offers no specific support for: proper process life-cycle adoption, distributed work, collaboration  Metameth is a recent research tool developed in Palermo  It is a CAPE tool that instantiates a CASE tool.  It is based on workflow concepts and supports collaborative distributed work. Designer is supported by an expert system.  Eclipse Process Framework (EPF) 3 is an open source effort  It is a process modelling tool that adopts SPEM (Software Process Engineering Metamodel) by OMG.  Not properly a method engineering tool but very useful in documenting/representing the process  The Rational Method Composer tool is another example of this kind of tool 1 http://www.metacase.com/mep/ 2 M. Cossentino, L. Sabatucci, V. Seidita, S. Gaglio. An Agent Oriented Tool for New Design Processes. Fourth European Workshop on Multi-Agent Systems (EUMAS'06). Lisbon, Portugal. December 2006. 3 http://www.eclipse.org/epf/ 18 Nov. 200855

56. MetaEdit+ by MetaCASE M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  MetaEdit is composed of two main components:  The Workbench for defining the modeling language and related diagrams. It uses the GOPPRR metamodeling language. This is the CAME part of MetaEdit  The Modeler for actually designing the system. This is the CASE part of MetaEdit and allows the instantiation of the concepts and rules defined with the first step.  Comments  GOPPRR is powerful but defining a new process is a very demanding operation  Expansion capabilities (for instance with plug- ins or new behaviour modules) are quite limited  It is quite hard to convert it in a CAPE tool (see experience done with Agile PASSI) 18 Nov. 200856

57. PRODE Area 3: Supporting Tools Metameth

58. PRODE divided in three main areas of research M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08 MMM 3) A CAPE (Computer Aided Process Engineering) tool 18 Nov. 200858

59. What is metameth  Metameth is an (open-source) agent-oriented tool we built to support our experiments in methodologies composition and their application in real projects.  Metameth is:  a CAPE tool: since it supports the definition of the design process life- cycle and the positioning of the different method fragments in the intended place  a CAME tool: since it allows the definition of different method fragments  a CASE tool: since it supports a distributed design process, it offers several (by now UML) graphical editors and an expert system for verifying the resulting system M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200859

60. The Metameth tool architecture M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200860

61. Results Evaluation

62. Results Evaluation: an open problem? M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08 MMM Results Evaluation is crucial also in process improvement/reengineering 18 Nov. 200862

63. AO Design Process Evaluation M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  Q.N. Tran, G. C. Low (2005). Comparison of Ten Agent-Oriented Methodologies. In Agent-Oriented Methodologies, chapter XII, pp. 341–367. Idea Group.  L. Cernuzzi, G. Rossi (2002). On the evaluation of agent oriented methodologies. In: Proc. of the OOPSLA 2002 Workshop on Agent-Oriented Methodologies, pp. 21-30.  Arnon Sturm, Dov Dori, Onn Shehory (2004). A Comparative Evaluation of Agent-Oriented Methodologies, in Methodologies and Software Engineering for Agent Systems, Federico Bergenti, Marie-Pierre Gleizes, Franco Zambonelli (eds.)  Khanh Hoa Dam, Michael Winikoff (2003). Comparing Agent-Oriented Methodologies. In proc. of the Agent-Oriented Information Systems Workshop at AAMAS03. Melbourne (AUS).  P. Cuesta, A. Gómez, J. C. González, and F. J. Rodríguez (2003). A Framework for Evaluation of Agent Oriented Methodologies. CAEPIA'2003  L. Cernuzzi, M. Cossentino, F. Zambonelli (2005). Process Models for Agent- Based Development. International Journal on Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence (EAAI). Elsevier. 18 Nov. 200863

64. Details on AO processes evaluation M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  From:  Q.N. Tran, G. C. Low (2005). Comparison of Ten Agent-Oriented Methodologies. In Agent- Oriented Methodologies, chapter XII, pp. 341–367. Idea Group. Structure of the evaluation framework 18 Nov. 200864

65. Details on AO processes evaluation/2 M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  From:  Arnon Sturm, Dov Dori, Onn Shehory. A Comparative Evaluation of Agent-Oriented Methodologies, in Methodologies and Software Engineering for Agent Systems, Federico Bergenti, Marie-Pierre Gleizes, Franco Zambonelli (eds.)  Evaluation is based on:  concepts and properties (autonomy, proactiveness,, …),  notations and modeling techniques (accessibility, expressiveness),  process (development context, Lifecycle coverage),  pragmatics (required expertise, scalability, …). 18 Nov. 200865

66. Details on AO processes evaluation/3 M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  From  Khanh Hoa Dam, Michael Winikoff (2003). Comparing Agent-Oriented Methodologies. In proc. of the Agent-Oriented Information Systems Workshop at AAMAS03. Melbourne (AUS).  Based on a questionnaire  Reused and extended in AL3-AOSE TFG3 (see website 1 for results) 1 http://www.pa.icar.cnr.it/cos sentino/al3tf3/contributions. html 18 Nov. 200866

67. Details on AO process evaluation/4 M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)  “The overall goal of CMMI is to provide a framework that can share consistent process improvement best practices and approaches, but can be flexible enough to address the rapidly changing needs of the community.”  SCAMPI (Standard CMMI Assessment Method for Process Improvement): it is a schema for process evaluation in five steps: activation, diagnosis, definition, action, learning. 18 Nov. 200867

68. Details on AO process evaluation/5 CMMI discrete levels M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  Levels are used in CMMI to describe an evolutionary path recommended for an organization that wants to improve the processes  The maturity level of an organization provides a way to predict an organization’s performance in a given discipline or set of disciplines.  A maturity level is a defined evolutionary plateau for organizational process improvement. 18 Nov. 200868

69. Details on AO process evaluation/6 CMMI discrete levels M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08 Maturity LevelDescription 1-Initialprocesses are usually ad hoc and chaotic 2-Managedprocesses are planned and executed in accordance with policy 3-Definedprocesses are well characterized and understood, and are described in standards, procedures, tools, and methods 4-Quantitatively managed the organization and projects establish quantitative objectives for quality and process performance and use them as criteria in managing processes 5-Optimizingan organization continually improves its processes based on a quantitative understanding of the common causes of variation inherent in processes AOSE processes are (at most) at level 3!! (only a few of them) 18 Nov. 200869

70. Open issues M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  SME is perceived to be a difficult discipline  This is only partially true. All new design processes creator performed (usually in a disordered way) the steps proposed and studied by SME  A greater diffusion of AO-SME can have positive effects on the development of new AO design processes (specifically in new areas like self-org)  Major problems with AO-SME  AO processes deals with MAS metamodels and they are an open issue in the agent community  Lack of standards (ISO specification vs FIPA proposal)  Lack of standard repository of fragments  Lack of stable (commercial quality) CAPE/CAME tools  Design process evaluation is still an open issue in both AO and OO software engineering. 18 Nov. 200870

71. Fragment Repository Metameth Tool V. Seidita

72. Appendix More slides on selected topics

73. The PASSI Process Life-Cycle M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08 Five Models 18 Nov. 200873

74. PASSI Models Scope M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08 Each Model addresses a specific concern:  System Requirements Model  It aims at defining system functionalities and assigning them to agents  Agent Society Model  It aims at defining agent social features like communications, domain knowledge, agent roles.  Agent Implementation Model  It defines the agent solution according to the selected implementation platform  Code Model  It includes code obtained by pattern reuse and manually created code  Deployment Configuration Model  It defines dependencies among agents and host configurations in multi-hosts/mobile agents applications 18 Nov. 200874

75. PASSI ToolKit (PTK): screenshoots M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200875

76. PASSI new modelling notation

77. The New Unified Notation M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200877

78. Example of new notation – Task Specification Diagram M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200878

79. Example of new notation – Communication Ontology Description diagram M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200879

80. Example of new notation – Role Description Diagram M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'0818 Nov. 200880

81. Classical vs. agent-oriented method engineering (PRODE approach) M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08  Other authors work on the field (B. Henderson-Sellers, J. Ralyte, S Brinkkemper) but PRODE is specifically agent- oriented and focused on the importance of the MAS metamodel  A comparison of those approaches with mine can be found in:  Seidita, V., Ralyte, J., Henderson-Sellers, B., Cossentino, M., Arni-Bloch, N. A comparison of deontic matrices, maps and activity diagrams for the construction of situational methods. The 19th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE'07) Forum. 11-15 June 2007, Trondheim, Norway. 18 Nov. 200881