Description of specification developments

A framework allowing the expression of both the incremental construction of a specification and the development process behind the construction (decisions and their rationale) is proposed. A data structure composed of a workplan and the product is introduced and used to model a specification development. The availability of development operators is a critical point of the specification development model. Operators encapsulate general problem solving strategies. Development operators are defined by their parallel action on the workplan, the product, and the links between them. The implementation of the proposed approach requires an environment managing the workplan and the current specification being built. The operators will be chosen via menus dynamically defined according to the current task type