Feature Development in BPMN-Based Process-Driven Applications

Schneid Konrad, Thöne Sebastian, Kuchen Herbert


Abstract
In the context of Continuous Software Engineering, it is acknowledged as best practice to develop newfeatures on the mainline rather than on separate feature branches. Unfinished work is then usuallyprevented from going live by some kind of feature toggle. However, there is no concept of feature togglesfor Process-Driven Applications (PDA) so far. PDAs are hybrid systems consisting not only of classicalsource code but also of a machine-interpretable business process model. This paper elaborates on a featuredevelopment approach that covers both the business process model and the accompanying source codeartifacts of a PDA. The proposed solution, Toggles for Process-Driven Applications (T4PDA), equippedwith an easy to use modeling tool extension, enables the developer to safely commit unfinished work onmodel and source code to the project’s mainline. It will be kept inactive during productive deploymentsunless the feature is finally released. During an AB/BA crossover design experiment, the T4PDAapproach, including the provided tool support, showed higher software quality, a faster developmentprocess, and contented developers.

Keywords
Feature-driven development; Process-Driven Application; Continuous Software Engineering



Publication type
Research article (book contribution)

Peer reviewed
Yes

Publication status
Published

Year
2020

Book title
Business Process Management Forum

Editor
Fahland Dirk, Ghidini Chiara, Becker Joerg, Dumas Marlon

Start page
35

End page
50

Publisher
Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Language
English