Högskolan i Skövde

When systematically adopting a CASE (Computer-Aided Software Engineering) tool, an organisation evaluates candidate tools against a framework of requirements, and selects the most suitable tool for usage. A method, called 2G, has been proposed that aims at developing such frameworks based on the needs of a specific organisation.

This method includes a pilot evaluation phase, where state-of-the-art CASE-tools are explored with the aim of gaining more understanding of the requirements that the organisation adopting CASE-tools puts on candidate tools. This exploration results in certain output data, parts of which are used in interviews to discuss the findings of the tool exploration with the organisation. This project has focused on identifying the characteristics of these data, and subsequently to hypothesise a representation of the data, with the aim of providing guidelines for future tool support for the 2G method.

The approach to reaching this aim was to conduct a case study of a new application of the pilot evaluation phase, which resulted in data that could subsequently be analysed with the aim of identifying characteristics. This resulted in a hypothesised data representation, which was found to fit the data from the conducted application well, although certain situations were identified that the representation might not be able to handle.