A Scoping Definition Experiment in Software Process Lines.

In Software Process Line Engineering (SPrLE), two main processes are established for the construction of a Software Process Line (SPrL): domain engineering and application engineering. The first refers to the definition of the structural elements of the SPrL, and the second is responsible for deriving process instances that satisfy specific situations (product development and projects with similar characteristics). As a part of domain engineering, the scope of the SPrL must be delimited providing the processes and their features to be reused and established, as well as specifying the situations that these processes will support. Scoping is a complex and vital activity, which can make it easier or more difficult for organizations to achieve a viable SPrL solution, but according to the literature, the definition of scope is in an immature state, which means that its materialization is not systematic. In this article, aspects such as ease of use, utility, and reliability of a proposal for the definition of scope in SPrLs are validated through an experiment. According to the qualitative results obtained, our proposal can be considered useful, organized, consistent, and has enough information. Despite this, there is a conceptual complexity that limits the adequate understanding of all the work involved in defining the scope. Nevertheless, the quantitative results show that our proposal achieves certain reliability and, therefore, repeatability and systematicity in its results.