On the Differentiation of "Context" and "Project Type"

Based on the experience that there cannot be a "one-size-fits-all" method, different situational method engineering approaches are examined in this paper. The result of the analysis shows that "situations" are conceptualized very imprecisely. Therefore, we propose to differentiate between "context" and "project type" in situational method engineering. Especially context is neglected in existing method engineering approaches. To close this gap, we enhance existing method engineering processes by adding three steps to facilitate the identification of context factors and project type factors, enabling the engineering of both contextual and project type-specific methods. Furthermore, we propose a set of extensions to the method engineering meta model that allow the method engineer to differentiate between "context" and "project type" in describing situational methods.