a flexible negotiation model for an agent-based software process modelling

Our Agent-based Software Process Modelling (ASPM) approach describes a software process as a set of cooperative agents. Negotiation is the way in which the agents construct their cooperative relations, and thus the software process. Currently, most negotiation models use a fixed negotiation protocol and fixed strategies. In order to achieve the flexibility that the negotiation of the agents in ASPM requires, we propose a negotiation model NM-PA. NM-PA mainly includes a generic negotiation protocol and some rules, which possibly change in different negotiation processes. By changing the rules, the model can support multi-protocols and multi-decision-making strategies at a lower cost.

An Integrated Solution for Software Process Improvement

Since 1990s, the software industry in China has been developed very rapidly and the total revenue in recent three years of 2005, 2006 and 2007 were 390.0, 480.0, and 583.4 billions RMB respectively, increased by 28.3% annually on an average basis [1]. By the end of 2007, there were about 18,000 software enterprises in China, and the population of software professionals was 1.48 millions roughly. In the global software market, China, with annual revenue about 82.2 billions USD (8.74% of the total: 940 billions USD), currently ranks on the fourth after USA, EU and Japan. However, the software industry in China is still comparatively weak. Most software enterprises have only tens of employees and millions RBM of revenue. And the software development productivity in China varies highly across the software industry in terms of organization, development type, business area, region, language, project size and team size [2]. Co-operative efforts from the government, the industry and the academy are needed [3]. Continuous software process improvement is an effective way to change the challenging situation of the software industry in China.