Modeling collaboration for large-scale software system integration by formal communication models

In the development of large software systems, several synchronization points have to be passed successfully in order to achieve high-end user acceptance of the final system. In particular, the integration of conceptual design entities has turned out to be the most crucial step in software development. At this point, an explicit representation of the organizational knowledge, namely how the integration can be performed, is required. The overall organization of the integration of design entities is a set of knowledge, action (including communication), and time. The knowledge part comprises the integration procedure itself as well as the design entities. Actions are performed by the members of the project team (project leaders, developers). Each integration step has to be performed synchronized, so that each member of the development team knows concurrently the status of the integration procedure. All other individual design activities are usually performed asynchronously. According to the need for an explicit representation of the organizational knowledge for large software system design, this paper attempts tounderstand the nature of large software system integration and formallydescribes the coordination of a dispersed set of software developers. The organizational knowledge is represented by processes that occur in an asynchronous development environment. The design knowledge is assigned to logical formulas that are processed as exchanged messages among developers. Hence, the activities for integration are based on the transmission of messages. Time-critical events, such as the integration of a particular design entity into the final conceptual design of the software system, have to become common knowledge concurrently for all developers. This organizational constraint has been formalized in the communication model. Not only can the proposed framework be adapted to organizational changes in a flexible way, it can also be applied to any specific development strategy for the integration of conceptual design entities. Thus, such kind of formal communication models may provide a sound basis for cooperative CASE (computer-aided software engineering) tools.This work has been sponsored by the Max Kade Foundation, New York.