.
What we mean here by product refers to the different EKD models. It is clear that at the beginning of the EKD-CMM process the situation can be a problem statement, in other words some guidelines can be used « from scratch ».
This page describes and illustrates with examples the types of guidelines used to present any EKD-CMM guideline available in this electronic guidebook, respectively choice, plan and executable guidelines. The description is given in the left part whereas the example is shown in the right part.
| The body of a Choice Guideline
offers different alternative ways for achieving the process intention.
For example, the guideline shown in the right side is a choice guideline
introducing two alternatives to the construction of the change process
model, each alternative proposing a specific strategy.
Arguments (in italics) are provided to help in the selection of the most appropriate alternative in the actual process. For example, the Follow goal deployment strategy is the right decision to make when current enterprise goals, requirements for the future and contextual forces driving the change are known. Click here for more information. |
|
| The body of a Plan Guideline proposes
a set of steps to be followed for achieving the process intention.
For example, the guideline Follow goal deployment strategy shown
in the right side is a plan guideline composed of two component guidelines
(steps), namely Construct a hierarchy of change goals, and
Attach processes. This means that, when using the goal deployment
strategy, the EKD-CMM user has first to construct the hierarchy of change
goals and then to attach processes to the leaves of this hierarchy.
Click here for more information. |
|
| The body of
an Executable Guideline proposes a set of activities to be
carried out. Each activity is associated to techniques and tools and a
short description (comments).
On the right side, the executable guideline suggests the following activities : 1) to determine the impact of an external constraint on current goals; 2) to elicit change goals; and 3) to envision alternative goals. |
|
The formalism used to express EKD-CMM guidelines is the same which has been developed in [Rolland95]. The EKD-CMM guidelines presented in this guidebook are structured according to this formalism.
Following [Rolland95], we consider a method as being composed of a set of guidelines. In the context of the EKD-CMM method, a guideline suggests how to progress at a given point of the EKD-CMM process, how to fulfil a modelling goal that an EKD-CMM user may have. A guideline might be looked upon as a structured module of knowledge for supporting decision making in the EKD-CMM process.
Following the contextual approach developed within the ESPRIT project NATURE, we propose to describe a guideline using the concept of context.
A context is defined as a pair <situation, intention>.
A situation is a part of the product it makes sense to make a
decision on. It is represented by the symbol
.
What we mean here by product refers to the different EKD models. It
is clear that at the beginning of the EKD-CMM process the situation can
be a problem statement, in other words some guidelines can be used «
from scratch ».
An intention represents a goal an EKD-CMM user wants to fulfil
at a given point in time during the EKD-CMM process. It corresponds to
the name of the guideline. The result expected of fullfilment of the intention
is the target of the guideline. This target is described using an EKD-CMM
model called a product model. The product model which is used to describe
the target of the guideline is represented by the symbol 
.
For example, the guideline <(Goal) ; Reduce goal> considers a goal of the goal model as the situation and Reduce goal as the intention. In this case, what the EKD-CMM user wants to achieve is to decompose or to refine the goal of the situation into more specific goals. This guideline describes a set of different strategies for reducing a goal (e.g. using a case driven strategy, an actor driven strategy, etc.) and provides means for the selection of the most appropriate strategy.
Guidelines can be linked repeatedly in a hierarchy. Links between guidelines are of two kinds: refinement links which allow the refinement of a large-grained guideline into finer ones and composition links for the decomposition of a guideline into component guidelines.
Therefore, guidelines are of three types, namely choice, plan or executable. The EKD-CMM knowledge is defined as a hierarchy of guidelines having executables guidelines as leaves of this hierarchy.
When progressing in the EKD-CMM process, the user may have several alternative ways to solve an issue. Therefore, he/she has to select the most appropriate one among the set of possible choices. In order to model such a piece of EKD-CMM process knowledge, we use the first type of guideline, namely the choice guideline. Arguments are defined to support the various alternatives of a choice guideline and help in capturing heuristics followed by the EKD-CMM user in choosing the appropriate problem solving strategy.
It is important to notice that the alternatives of a choice guideline are guidelines too. In our example, the first alternative guideline, namely construct change process model, is a plan guideline. The second one is not developed for the moment.
In order to represent situations requiring a set of decisions to be made for fulfilling a certain intention (for instance to Use milestones based strategy for the reduction of a goal of in a goal model), the EKD-CMM process modeling formalism includes a second type of guideline called the plan guideline.
A plan guideline can be looked upon as a macro issue which is decomposed into sub-issues, each of which corresponds to a sub-decision associated to a component situation of the macro one. Components of a plan guideline are also guidelines.
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