A Procedure for Extracting Software Development Process Patterns

Process patterns represent well-structured and successful recurring activities of Software Development Methodologies (SDMs). They are able to form a library of reusable building blocks that can be utilized in Situational Method Engineering (SME) for constructing a custom SDM or enhancing an existing one to fit specific project situation. Recently, some researchers have subjectively extracted process patterns from existing SDMs based on cumulative experience in various domains, however, how to objectively extract process patterns from SDMs by adopting a systematic procedure has remained as question. In this regard, this paper is concerned with a procedure aiming to take process patterns out of existing SDMs. An example illustrates applicability of the proposed procedure for extracting process patterns in a specific context.