A best practice based approach to CASE-tool selection

Best software practices are adopted and adapted by software organizations to support improvement goals. Traditionally, CASE tools have been considered as one of the most important means for implementing best practices. Today´s CASE technology offers much process optimization and increases the options for how and where improvements could be done. However, CASE tool expenses are typically high due to their steep learning curve. The selection of the right CASE tool has, therefore become more important in ensuring the CASE investment delivers value for money. This paper introduces a best practice based approach to CASE tool selection so the potentiality of CASE tools to support the development of a process-oriented software organization can be assessed. The paper derives three sets of CASE attributes pertinent to the best practices addressed in three major reference process architectures: Capability Maturity Model for Software, ISO 9000-3 and Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The approach has been applied to three case studies dealing with 9 object-oriented and 7 conventional CASE tools. This illustrates the power of the benchmarking approach to capture subtle CASE quality issues. It is a valuable instrument for evaluating and comparing the CASE-tools´ fitness for use in a specific improvement context