Model-Driven Software Development: Technology, Engineering, Management

Chapter 13

MDSD Process Building Blocks and Best Practices

with Jorn Bettin

13.1 Introduction

This chapter introduces important proven process building blocks that enable and support the successful use of Model-Driven Software Development in projects. We abstract from the architecture-centric case outlined in Chapters 2 and 3. The techniques that were used partly intuitively in those chapters are explicitly elaborated, generalized, and detailed in this chapter.

Most processes and practices can quite easily be transferred to general – that is, non architecture-centric – MDSD. Techniques that only make sense in architecture-centric cases, or that require a specific interpretation, are explicitly marked as such. We are going to build on the MDSD terminology defined in Chapter 4, so we recommend that you read that chapter first.

We do not intend to introduce a self-contained and complete development process – enough literature is already available, ranging from agile to heavyweight. Instead, we are going to focus on those process-related aspects that are specifically relevant in the context of MDSD. This also means that there is a certain degree of freedom over how formally these best practices are applied in concrete projects.

We recommend that the best practices are embedded into an iterative-incremental, and in particular, agile development process. MDSD does not conflict with the latter, but is in fact well suited to enhance its advantages. Theoretically, MDSD can even be combined ...