Incrementally introducing process model rationale support in an organization

Popular process models such as the Rational Unified Process or the V-Modell XT are by nature large and complex. Each time that a new release is published software development organizations are confronted with the big challenge of understanding the rationale behind the new release and the extent to which it affects them. Usually, there is no information about what has changed or most importantly why. This is because of the lack of a flexible approach that supports organizations responsible for evolving such large process models in documenting their decisions and that reflects the extent of the capabilities to which they can provide this information. This paper describes an approach to incrementally deploying rationale support as needed to match an organization's needs, the capabilities and interests of the organization's process engineering teams, and the organization's willingness to support the effort required for the collection and application of the rationale information.