Abstract:

It is increasingly evident that there is no one approach or methodology to software development that suits all types of software projects - even at the organizational level. While modern software methodologies offer advice on the development phases of software, they do not usually offer any guidance in terms of how we can effectively select or tailor an approach that is a good fit from an organizational perspective. The need for an approach – a methodology – that does provide reliable guidance in how to tailor a software development method so that it fits the organization’s culture, capabilities, maturity and norms is therefore evident.  In this paper, we present our on-going empirical work (using Action Research) aimed to engineer an organizational methodology through the adoption of a method engineering approach and the deployment of a methodological framework. Subsequently, this engineered methodology would be tailored and used by different teams within the organization in order to design and construct different development methods to suit their individual projects. The organization under study is going through a transitioning process to change their current work culture as their adopted method is no longer viable due to their sudden business growth and consequently, the rapid increase of their IT personnel.