Towards Automatic Process-aware Coordination in Collaborative Software Engineering

The dynamic nature and high degree of collaboration and communication inherent in software development projects raises various challenges for the automated coordination of tasks in software engineering environments (SEEs). To address these challenges and to enable automated coordination, adaptive process-aware SEEs are required that enhance process quality while not encumbering software development. This paper describes a synergistic approach that extends a process-aware information system with contextual awareness and integrates this in a SEE. Abstract processes and the actually executed workflows are automatically and contextually associated. In particular, intrinsic and extrinsic process activities are considered and a context-based reasoning process is used to automatically derive possible (artifact) activity relations and consequences. Thus, necessary follow-up activities can be automatically governed. Our results show support for improved team coordination, greater situational awareness for developers, and process guidance as well as process navigability for collaborating software engineers.