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The main objective of this document is to define the organization of the development life cycle of a software system based on the ICONS framework. The result of the work presented here is a methodology that allows for proper arrangement of the construction process. The basic assumption is that we use a ready set of configurable components that form an architectural framework. We assume that the individual elements of the architecture are supplied ready to be configured (to various extent) and linked into a coherent system. It has to be stressed that .configuration. of components is not a trivial task and requires knowledge of appropriate techniques, notations and knowledge of programming languages.
Additional objective of this paper is to describe the overall process associated with the flow of knowledge and the process of its transformation (meta-process). It is an important amendment to the software life cycle methodology. It allows the organisation that implements a knowledge management software system also to transform its processes to accommodate for the new system.
The paper is divided into nine chapters, several appendices and bibliography. The first chapter is a standard introduction. The following two chapters are the presentation of the general context for life cycle and management methodologies in the field of Knowledge Management and software development. In these chapters we introduce a division of the whole methodological area of KM into four sub-areas. These are: Knowledge Management Process (KMP), Knowledge Life Cycle Process (KLCP), Software Management Process (SMP) and Software Life Cycle Process (SLCP). We argue that first two processes are important to be implemented in any organization. The SMP and SLCP should be introduced in organizations that produce software (and specifically . KM related software). We also argue that the description of SMP is outside of the scope of this paper. The following two chapters present the current state of the art in methodologies for KLCP, KMP and SLCP. We present several methodologies that were developed earlier and their results can be used to develop a novel methodology related strictly to the ICONS framework.
Chapter six introduces an important aspect of any methodology for the development of software systems, which is the notation and method of description. The methodology should be comprehensible by all, even inexperienced members of the process. The graphical notations are most communicative and thus we propose a notation based on UML (Unified Modelling Language). This graphical notation was used with success for business and system modelling purposes, and is understood by a growing (and already vast) number of system developers.
Chapters seven to nine present the actual results of our effort for methodology development. We describe three methodologies for three already mentioned areas. Each of the methodologies is described in terms of roles that perform activities and produce artefacts. We use class diagrams to present static structure of relationships between roles and artefacts. We also use activity diagrams to show the dynamics of the flow of tasks in the process. Finally, we apply interaction (sequence) diagrams to present the message flow in the process. The description of artefacts in the above chapters is extended in the appendices. These contain more detailed descriptions of sub-artefacts related to the most complex components of the ICONS architecture. This document should be used as a handbook for process configuration. The processes described here should be used as the starting point to the definition of processes specific to the given organisation that uses the ICONS framework. The KLCP and KMP methodologies are general in nature and can be used by organisations not necessarily building an ICONS-based system. Back to top