Abstract:
Although the Method Engineering (ME) research community has
reached considerable maturity, it has not yet been able to agree on the
granularity and definition of the configurable parts of methods. This state of
affairs is causing unnecessary confusion, especially with an ever increasing
number of people contributing to ME research. There are several competing
notions around, most significantly 'method fragments' and 'method chunks',
but also 'method components' and 'process components' are used in some
quarters and have also been widely published. Sometimes these terms are used
interchangeably, but there appears to be important semantic and pragmatic
differences. If the differences are unimportant, we should be able to come to
an agreement on what construct to promote. Alternatively, the different
constructs may serve different purposes and there is a need for them to coexist.
If this is the case, it should be possible to pinpoint exactly how they are related
and which are useful in what contexts. This panel is a step towards finding
common ground in this area, which arguably is at the very core of ME.