A Practical Guide to the Technology and Adoption of Software Process Automation

Process automation provides a means to integrate people in a software development organization with the development process and the tools supporting that development. For many reasons, this new technology has the potential to significantly improve software quality and software development productivity. As yet, however, there is little practical experience in its day-to-day use. The main goal of this report is thus to provide information for organizations that are considering its adoption. For these reasons, the report aims to identify how process automation relates to both process improvement and CASE tools, to review in some detail two of the major commercial process automation products, and to address relevant organizational adoption issues. It is hoped that the report will help bridge the gap between those whose focus is software process improvement and those whose focus is software technology.