Software engineering life cycle support-decision based systems development

The software engineering life cycle encompasses a broad range of activities, from the initial elicitation of the system requirements to the continuing evolution of the operational system. These activities can be best supported if there is a unifying paradigm which can integrate functional and non-functional problem-solving, process management, and knowledge acquisition and reuse. The decision based software development (DBSD) paradigm structures the software development and evolution process as a continuous problem-solving and decision making activity. In the DBSD paradigm, the software engineering team identifies and articulates software development problems, proposes alternative solutions, and develops supporting justifications from which a decision is made. This paper describes our experiences an using DBSD on five diverse projects