Contextual Generation of Declarative Workflows and their Application to Software Engineering Processes

Process management can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of process activities by structuring and coordinating their execution. However, its application can become problematic in dynamic environments such as software engineering, since rigidly pre-specified process models are not capable of adequately handling dynamic aspects of the processes. Therefore, this work presents a declarative, problem-oriented process modeling technique that enables the modeling of dynamic sets of candidate activities from which a subset is automatically selected for execution. The system selects the subset based on the contextual properties of situations and subsequently utilizes it to build executable workflows. Thus, the same process model is used to generate various workflows matching the properties of different situations. Preliminary results suggest this technique can be beneficial in addressing both high workflow diversity and workflow modeling effort reduction while providing useable process guidance.