Software process improvement requires high level formalisms for describing project-specific, organizational and quality aspects. These formalisms must be convenient not only for capture but also for execution purposes. In order to fulfill these requirements and to build a software process environment capable of supporting engineering tasks we have designed a new graphical, but still e, formalism called APEL (for Abstract Process Engine Language). APEL is very ambitious in the sense that it aims at covering a wide spectrum of needs and approaches expressed not only in the software engineering field but also in many others such as real-time systems, object-oriented methodologies, tool integration, CSCW, workflow and information systems. It is then not surprising to see that many concepts and techniques used in APEL are borrowed from these connected fields. A major outcome of the work presented here was to integrate a broad range of concepts and paradigms in a single and coherent fr...