Towards systematic knowledge elicitation for descriptive software process modeling

Capturing the process as it is being executed in a descriptive process model is a key activity in process improvement. Performing descriptive process modeling in industry environments is hindered by factors such as dispersed process knowledge or an inconsistent understanding of the process among different project members. A systematic approach can alleviate some of the problems. This paper sketches fundamental difficulties in gaining process knowledge and describes a systematic approach to process elicitation. The approach employs techniques from other domains like social sciences that have been tailored to the process elicitation context and places them in a decision framework that gives guidance on selecting appropriate techniques in specific modeling situations. Initial experience with the approach is reported.