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Many different kinds of process are used to develop software intensive products, but there is little agreement as to which processes give the best results under which circumstances. Practitioners and researchers believe that project outcomes would be improved if the development process was constructed according to project-specific factors. In order to achieve this goal, greater understanding of the factors that most affect outcomes is needed. To improve understanding, researchers build models of the process and carry out studies based on these models. However, current models contain many ambiguities and assumptions, and so it is not clear what the results of the studies mean. The statement of this thesis is that it is possible to create an abstraction of the software development process that will provide a mechanism for comparing software processes and software process models. The long term goal of the research is to provide planners with a means of tailoring the development process on a project by project basis, with the aim of reducing risk and improving outcomes.

Many different kinds of process are used to develop software intensive products, but there is little agreement as to which processes give the best results under which circumstances. Practitioners and researchers believe that project outcomes would be improved if the development process was constructed according to project-specific factors. In order to achieve this goal, greater understanding of the factors that most affect outcomes is needed. To improve understanding, researchers build models of the process and carry out studies based on these models. However, current models contain many ambiguities and assumptions, and so it is not clear what the results of the studies mean. The statement of this thesis is that it is possible to create an abstraction of the software development process that will provide a mechanism for comparing software processes and software process models. The long term goal of the research is to provide planners with a means of tailoring the development process on a project by project basis, with the aim of reducing risk and improving outcomes.

Many different kinds of process are used to develop software intensive products, but there is little agreement as to which processes give the best results under which circumstances. Practitioners and researchers believe that project outcomes would be improved if the development process was constructed according to project-specific factors. In order to achieve this goal, greater understanding of the factors that most affect outcomes is needed. To improve understanding, researchers build models of the process and carry out studies based on these models. However, current models contain many ambiguities and assumptions, and so it is not clear what the results of the studies mean. The statement of this thesis is that it is possible to create an abstraction of the software development process that will provide a mechanism for comparing software processes and software process models. The long term goal of the research is to provide planners with a means of tailoring the development process on a project by project basis, with the aim of reducing risk and improving outcomes.

Many different kinds of process are used to develop software intensive products, but there is little agreement as to which processes give the best results under which circumstances. Practitioners and researchers believe that project outcomes would be improved if the development process was constructed according to project-specific factors. In order to achieve this goal, greater understanding of the factors that most affect outcomes is needed. To improve understanding, researchers build models of the process and carry out studies based on these models. However, current models contain many ambiguities and assumptions, and so it is not clear what the results of the studies mean. The statement of this thesis is that it is possible to create an abstraction of the software development process that will provide a mechanism for comparing software processes and software process models. The long term goal of the research is to provide planners with a means of tailoring the development process on a project by project basis, with the aim of reducing risk and improving outcomes.

Currently, the bulk of applications of Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) in software engineering have focussed on software maintenance and re-engineering. In this thesis we broaden the approach by applying FCA to a number of early-phase activities within the software engineering life-cycle. With respect to the requirements engineering phase, a case study is presented comparing two class hierarchies that model aspects of a mass-transit railway ticketing system. The first hierarchy was produced for an existing Object-Z specification of the system while the second was derived using FCA. Contrasting the two hierarchies revealed that they were essentially the same, however, the differences highlighted specification artefacts in the existing hierarchy. With respect to the design phase, the thesis discusses the use of FCA for the navigation and visualisation of Formal Specifications written in Z. In response to the continued call for formal methods tool support, we implement and explore a prototype specification browser that exploits the abstractions afforded by FCA. The research hypothesis is an integrated architecture for navigating formal specifications using FCA. This architecture is realised using ZML and ToscanaJ to produce a practical research tool. The thesis also includes the first broad survey of FCA in the domain of software engineering and an FCA-based methodology for surveying academic literature in general.

Currently, the bulk of applications of Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) in software engineering have focussed on software maintenance and re-engineering. In this thesis we broaden the approach by applying FCA to a number of early-phase activities within the software engineering life-cycle. With respect to the requirements engineering phase, a case study is presented comparing two class hierarchies that model aspects of a mass-transit railway ticketing system. The first hierarchy was produced for an existing Object-Z specification of the system while the second was derived using FCA. Contrasting the two hierarchies revealed that they were essentially the same, however, the differences highlighted specification artefacts in the existing hierarchy. With respect to the design phase, the thesis discusses the use of FCA for the navigation and visualisation of Formal Specifications written in Z. In response to the continued call for formal methods tool support, we implement and explore a prototype specification browser that exploits the abstractions afforded by FCA. The research hypothesis is an integrated architecture for navigating formal specifications using FCA. This architecture is realised using ZML and ToscanaJ to produce a practical research tool. The thesis also includes the first broad survey of FCA in the domain of software engineering and an FCA-based methodology for surveying academic literature in general.