Coordinating System Development Processes+

In this paper we describe how explicit models of software or knowledge engineering processes can be used to guide and control the distributed development of complex systems. The paper focuses on techniques which automatically infer dependencies between decisions from a process model and methods which allow to integrate planning and execution steps. Managing dependencies between decisions is a basis for improving the traceability of development processes. Switching between planning and execution of subprocesses is an inherent need in the development of complex systems. The paper concludes with a description of the CoMo-Kit system which implements the technologies mentioned above and which uses WWW technology to coordinate development processes. An on-line demonstration of the system can be found via the CoMo-Kit homepage: http://wwwagr.informatik.uni-kl.de/~comokit