Process Guides. Effective Guidance for Process Participants

A process guide is a reference document for a particular process, providing assistance to process participants in carrying out that process. Although most organizations have such documents (e.g., standards, manuals), they are frequently deficient in both form and content, and often go unused. This paper describes a program of applied research on improving both the usefulness and usability of process guides. It first discusses an exemplary paper-based process guide. It then describes a prototype web-based Electronic Process Guide (EPG). The paper then introduces a key element of our vision for the future, Collaborative Process Guides (CPGs), which will be integrated with other forms of process technology as well as with collaboration technology. An incremental plan is outlined for developing and maturing the "technology" for this advanced process guidance (EPGs and CPGs). This plan can also be interpreted as a strategy for incrementally introducing process technology into an organizatio n, avoiding user resistance and overcoming some of the perceived drawbacks of process-sensitive software engineering environments.