Session 4: Experimentation in the Process Framework The first step to building a credible empirical side to process research
Carolyn Budinger Seaman, Lawrence G. Votta · 1995
What does experimentation in the process framework mean? After all, processes enacted as parts or all of a software development are one data point - right? As you can observe from these two introductory sentences, our models and our language for discussing empirical work in software engineering, and in particular, a process framework are not well developed. This session was a start at trying to discuss and provide some of the foundations for models and language of experimental work when discussing processes involving more than one or two people. The workshop session consisted of two parts. The first part was a general background section on areas relevant to experiments involving many people. We described some of the properties of good experiments and a research bibliography was made available to start the work of building a hybrid empirical research paradigm somewhere between the physical and social sciences. The second part was a discussion of some of the key issues of concern to the participants at the workshop. These issues included the role of academia in work involving large non-repeatable developments and the role of tailorability desired/required by the project manager in large software developments.