Rationale management in software engineering

The emphasis on new and changing technologies and process models in today’s software development obscures the fact that software engineering is still primarily a human-based activity and that the success of a software project largely depends on the decisions made by humans during engineering. Rationale management is concerned with making these design and development decisions explicit to all stakeholders involved.

Dutoit, McCall, Mistrik and Paech begin their book with a historical survey of different rationale approaches. It is followed by four parts describing: the fundamental problems and possible solution approaches in rationale management, rationale management during requirements engineering, rationale management during software architecting, and rationale management for organizing reusable bodies of knowledge.

The result is a detailed summary of research on design rationale. It provides researchers with an excellent state-of-the-art overview, and professional software engineers will find many examples, resources and incentives to enhance their ability to make decisions during all phases of the software lifecycle.

Allen Dutoit, Ray McCall, Ivan Mistrik and Barbara Paech have done an excellent job of this in "Rationale management in software engineering". The chapters in this volume show how design rationale can be incorporated into the heart of the software development process - into requirements engineering, software architecture, and code design. (John M. Carroll, Edward M. Frymoyer Professor of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State University, USA, ACM CHI Lifetime Achievement Award)