Developing and evaluating software engineering process theories

Abstract

A process theory is an explanation of how an entity changes and develops. While software engineering is fundamentally concerned with how software artifacts change and develop, little research explicitly builds and empirically evaluates software engineering process theories. This lack of theory obstructs scientific consensus by focusing the academic community on methods. Methods inevitably oversimplify and over-rationalize reality, obfuscating crucial phenomena including uncertainty, problem framing and illusory requirements. Better process theories are therefore needed to ground software engineering in empirical reality. However, poor understanding of process theory issues impedes research and publication. This paper therefore attempts to clarify the nature and types of process theories, explore their development and provide specific guidance for their empirically evaluation.