Method Engineering: A Service-Oriented Approach - Intentional Perspectives on Information Systems Engineering - page 344

• If the process is decisional, the developer must select one or more simple con-

stituent processes. Quality attributes, defined on each constituent process of the
decisional process, guide developer's choices. For all simple processes selected
by the developer, a new iteration is initialized with goals corresponding to simple
processes. It is important to note that the execution graph of the current decisional
service (and consequently of the process graph) comprises a decision point. This
new iteration will enable to substitute the decision point of the process graph with
the execution graph of the found services.

•

If the process is composite, it has one or more simple constituent processes.
Similarly to decisional processes, a new iteration is initialized with goals cor-
responding to simple processes. In this new iteration, the process will search the
services which are appropriated to replace the simple processes. It is important to
note that the execution graph of the current service (and consequently the process
graph) comprises a variation point for each simple process. The following itera-
tion will make it possible to substitute the variation points of the process graph
with the execution graphs of the selected services.

• If the process is atomic, either the composition process is finished or it remains

variation points or decision points in the process graph and new iterations are
necessary.

At the end of the composition process, the process graph does not comprise any
more variation point or decision point. The process graph obtained could be carried
out to produce particular artifacts in a precise context.

7 Conclusion

In this chapter, we have presented a service oriented approach for building IS devel-
opment methods tailored to developers' requirements. Development problems are
considered as goals to realize and method services are self-contained units that pro-
vide process fragments to achieve these goals. An ontology of method supports the
research and composition of method services with a high degree of automation.
Furthermore, this ontology provides a common vocabulary which can be used both
by the “providers” and the “requesters” of services. Service composition is carried
out by an iterative composition process which links dynamically services to generate
tailored system development methods.
Even if the service orientation seems promising to answer method engineer-
ing requirements, of course, more in-depth research into the practice of service
orientation in method engineering is needed.
Based on the work presented in this chapter, we consider that service orientation
in method engineering raises new interesting challenges:
The need to develop a community of practice for the domain of IS engineering
methods. Such a community should increase service creation and exchanges among
people and store and preserve services through a collective distributed and dynamic