MODELS 2010 and using models to document designs

Jon Whittle and John Hutchinson attended the MODELS 2010 conference in Oslo, where Jon Whittle appeared on the Thursday's panel on "Modeling - Dos and Don'ts".
During the discussion, in an answer to a question from the day's keynote speaker, Pamela Zave, Jon mistakenly suggested that our data did not support the idea that the use of modeling to document designs was a significant factor in practitioners' use of MDE. In fact, our data does not support this assertion. When our questionnaire respondents were asked how "using models to capture and document designs" affected their productivity and maintainabilty:
  * 66% thought that their use of models to capture and document designs improved productivity
  * 61% thought that their use of models to capture and document designs improved maintainablity
In contrast, approximately 20% in each case thought that this use of models had no effect on productivity/maintainability, and approximately 6% and 11%, repsectively, think that using models in this way reduced productivity and maintainability. This leaves only 8-9% of respondents reporting that they have no experience of the matter.

Are you going to MODELS in Oslo?

Jon Whittle and John Hutchinson, from Lancaster University's EA-MDE project, will be attending the MODELS 2010 conference in Oslo next month. For "project organisation" reasons (we're a pilot project and officially we were due to complete before the conference starts), we have not been able to organise an official event such as a tutorial or workshop. However, we will be trying to arrange a "birds of a fearther" session. If you're interested, please look out for whatever signs we can think of to publicise the event! Alternatively, if you are interested in making contact, please do. John H. hopes to be there for most of the week (not least because I want to see the Viking ship - hey, I'm a Brit, work it out) and Jon W. should be around for most of the conference proper. Look forward to seeing you there.

Do modeling tools actually suppport "modeling"?

This is a question we've been asking ourselves recently. We hear a lot about how modeling tools are not yet as mature as the tools used in conventional software engineering - and usually the sort of issues that are raised are concerned with usability and tool-chain interoperablity.
But if the crux of a modeling-based development process is "modeling", do the available tools support this activity - or do they, for example, appear to be editors for a given notation?
Thoughts welcome...

Keynote at CBSOFT 2010

Jon Whittle presented a keynote at Brazilian Conference on Software: Theory and Practice (CBSoft), in Salvador-Bahia, Brasil (27th September-1 October 2010). The title of the talk was "How to Succeed (or Fail) with Model-Driven Engineering:A Qualitative Study of What Works (and What Does Not)"
Abstract.
This talk will present results from a large-scale qualitative study with industry of what factors lead to successful adoption of model-driven engineering (MDE). Over a 9 month period, we conducted the study using a three pronged approach: (1) an in-depth questionnaire with MDE practitioners, which garnered over 250 responses; (2) interviews with industry professionals from 12 different companies; (3) observational on-site studies with companies in multiple different countries. The interviews alone resulted in over 92,000 words of transcribed data. The talk will present the main lessons learned from these studies and, in particular, will discuss factors that affect whether an MDE adoption effort succeeds or fails.

EA-MDE Book?

Would you be interesed in a book presenting the findings of the project? If so, let us know - we're thinking about calling it "Model-Driven Development: Dos and Don'ts"

Keynote at SPLC 2010

Jon Whittle presented a keynote at the 14th International Software Product Line Conference, Jeju Island, South Korea (13-17 September 2010). The title of his talk is "The Truth About Model-Driven Development:who's doing it, how and why?"
Abstract:
Model-Driven Development (MDD) has been suggested as a key enabling technology for software product lines. But how mature is MDD really? Is it ready for prime time? Are the purported benefits of MDD really being achieved in practice? Put another way, who is using MDD in industry, why are they using it, and, more importantly, how?

This talk will present results from a twelve month investigation into how MDD is actually being used in industry. This is the first large-scale study of its kind. Data was collected using a three-pronged approach: (1) a widely disseminated questionnaire, which received over 200 responses; (2) in-depth interviews with around thirty practitioners from different organizations; (3) on-site observational studies with companies.

The talk will describe highlights from the findings and will reflect upon lessons learned for future research, practice and education of MDD.

Oh no! We forgot the blog!

Apologies to anybody who was hoping for interesting and useful content on our EA-MDE blog! We intended to ask people to write  "guest posts" but then got carried away with doing interviews and forgot to implement the plan.