Toward trustworthy software process models: an exploratory study on transformable process modeling

Software process modeling and simulation have become effective tools for support of software process management and improvement over the past two decades. They have recently been integrated into the Trustworthy Process Management Framework (TPMF) as the infrastructural components to facilitate the delivery of trustworthy software products. This paper proposes the concept of Trustworthy Software Process Models as inputs to TPMF and introduces transformable process modeling for supporting effective and productive development of trustworthy process models. Furthermore, this paper undertakes an exploratory study on process model transformation by investigating and comparing process modeling semantics between quantitative (e.g., System Dynamics, SD) and qualitative forms of modeling and simulation. By following the model transformation scheme, a quantitative continuous (SD) software evolution process model is successfully transformed into its qualitative form for simulation. The results present the different capabilities and performance between these two modeling paradigms, as well as the possible benefits and interesting perspectives of transformable process modeling. Copyright q 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.