Process Mashups with EPF
The Eclipse Process Framework continues to gather pace. EPF Composer maturing as a product (now on version 1.0.2). Not only that but the method side of the project now has content representing 3 different schools - the Unified Process (OpenUP); eXtreme Programming; and Scrum (my own contribution - the DSDM Plug-in for OpenUP is still, somewhat distressingly, crawling through the Eclipse Legal review...).
The growth of method content now means we can start to think about one of the great hopes I have for the EPF project - Process Mashups!
What does that mean? Well, apart from trying to shamelessly ride on the back of the latest fashionable techno-term, what I really mean is taking content from different method libraries and combining them to form hybrid processes.
We've been doing this in one form or another for years: How many times have you had to work with PRINCE2 + RUP? DSDM + XP? With EPF, the job gets a little easier, as the content contained in an EPF Method Library conforms to a shared meta-model, based on SPEM (the Software Process Engineering Meta model - see www.omg.org). This means that it is becoming much easier to work with re-usable chunks of method and combine them to form tailored processes.
There is the beginnings of a discussion around this in OpenUP/Basic at the moment. OpenUP/Basic needs a guideline for Refactoring. The XP plug-in for EPF already has one.
Do we really need to write another one especially for OpenUP?
