How to combine tools and methods in practice— a field study

In spring 1989 we surveyed the experiences of some Finnish companies in methodology modelling (metamodelling) and adaptation of tools and methodologies to each other (methodology adaptation). The companies represented software production, banking, wood and metal industry, and wholesale trade. The study was carried out as a field study where we interviewed method developers, systems analysts and their supervisors. The goal of the survey was to find out whether there was need for metamodelling or methodology adaptation in general and how this need had been satisfied. The study shows that a little experience had been gained in adapting data dictionaries to methodologies but no such attempts ha…

A comparative review of CASE shells: A preliminary framework and research outcomes

Abstract Because of rigidity and weak support of the user's native methods and methodologies in existing CASE tools, there is a growing need for customizable CASE tools (CASE shells). The nature of CASE shells is different from ordinary CASE tools supporting a fixed set of methods. With CASE shells, organizations can define tools to support their own methods, instead of choosing a tool that supports them. Existing CASE shells have different features and architectural principles that make them appropriate for different tasks. Obviously, a framework for comparing them is needed. In this paper we develop one such framework. It takes into account different tasks in customization and the effecti…

Modeling Requirements for Future CASE

In this paper we discuss some requirements for future CASE Computer Aided Software/Systems Engineering environments. These requirements include increased modifiability and flexibility as well as support for process and agent models. We claim that they can only be addressed by developing more powerful representation and modeling techniques. As a possible basis for modeling various techniques, we outline a general information architecture for a future CASE environment. In addition, we propose primitive types for specifying techniques, the development process, and agent models, and use these types for modeling an example methodology and examine how the requirements are or can be supported in o…

An annotated CASE bibliography

MetaEdit— A flexible graphical environment for methodology modelling

Existing CASE tools are often rigid and do not support the users' native methodologies. To alleviate this, more flexible and customisable tools called CASE shells are emerging. However, the customisation of those tools is still cumbersome and error-prone, and demands several configuration files that follow a rigid syntax of some metamodelling language(s). In order to make the customisation easier, we propose a graphical metamodelling editor, MetaEdit, with which the conceptual structures of the user methodology can be modelled easily using an easy-to-grasp graphical notation. With MetaEdit, methodology models can be constructed with less effort and the configuration files for the CASE shell…