CASE development: Improving software development by transfer of technology

Abstract

Despite all effort in the area of software engineering the software development process has not changed over the past three decades and is still in its infancy. Nowadays, the achievements in the area of hardware and storage facilities allow to develop highly complex software systems for any application domain. Thus exceeding time limits and high costs of developed software systems are becoming part of the everyday life of software developers. Similar to other engineering areas computerization became the buzzword in the 80's and CASE became the synonym for the solution of all these problems. Many tools or software engineering environment (SEE) components have been developed and marketed for that reason. However, despite all improvements the acceptance of SEE components has not met earlier expectations. The problem is that SEE components can only be used as vehicles to enhance the application of the supported methods. SEE components cannot overcome problems caused by the process itself and the software development process has not changed in the past. Experience shows that changing the process is only successful, if all other related aspects within the enterprise are considered thoroughly and updated accordingly. We propose a comprehensive CASE deployment process which starts with a thorough analysis of the enterprise organization revealing the strong points and weaknesses. The weaknesses are solved by introducing new methods and processes, SEE components and all other necessary changes to the enterprise organization. >