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Figure 1: Quality Assurance
LECTURE # 20
3. Processes
3.1 Software Process
When you build a product or system, it's important to go through a series of predictable steps – a road map that helps you create a timely, high-quality result, The road map that you follow is called a 'software process '.
Software engineers and their managers adapt the process to their needs and then follow it. In addition, the people who have ties defined by the process requested the software play a role in the software process.
It provides stability, control, and organization to an activity that can, if left uncontrolled, become quite chaotic.
At a detailed level, the process that you adopt depends on the software you're building. One process might be appropriate for creating software for an aircraft avionics system, while an entirely different process would be indicated for the creation of a web site.
From the point of view of a software engineer, the work products are the programs, documents and data produces as a consequence of the software engineering activities defined by the process.
A number of software process assessment mechanisms enable organizations to determine the “maturity” of a software process. However, the quality, timeliness and long-term viability of the product you build are the best indicators of the efficacy of the process that you use.
A common process framework is established by defining a small number of framework activities that are applicable to all software projects, regardless of their size or complexity. A number of task sets-each a collection of software engineering work tasks, project milestones, work products, and quality assurance points enable the framework activities to be adapted to the characteristics of the software project and the requirements of the project team. Finally, umbrella activities-such as software quality assurance, software configuration management, and measurement - overlay the process model. Umbrella activities are independent of anyone framework activity and occur through- out the process.
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Software Process Vs Software Engineering
But what exactly is a software process from a technical point of view? A software process is a framework for the tasks that are required to build high-quality software. Is process synonymous with software engineering? The answer is "yes" and "no." A software process defines the approach that is taken as software is engineered. But software engineering also encompasses technologies that populate the process-technical methods and automated tools.
More important, software engineering is performed by creative, knowledgeable people who should work within a defined and mature software process that is appropriate for the products they build, and the demands of their marketplace.
Software Engineering
Software engineering is a layered technology. Referring to Figure 2, any engineering approach (including software engineering) must rest on an organizational commitment to quality. Total quality management and similar philosophies foster a continuous process improvement culture, and this culture ultimately leads to the development of increasingly more mature approaches to
Figure 1: The software Process
Tasks
Milestones,
SQA points
Tasks
Framework activities
Common process
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3.2 PM Process Groups
Project management processes can be organized into five groups of one or more processes each:
1. Initiating processes—authorizing the project or phase 2. Planning processes—defining and refining objectives and selecting the best of the alternative courses of action to attain the objectives that the project was undertaken to address 3. Executing processes—coordinating people and other resources to carry out the plan 4. Controlling processes—ensuring that project objectives are met by monitoring and measuring progress regularly to identify variances from plan so that corrective action can be taken when necessary 5. Closing processes—formalizing acceptance of the project or phase and bringing it to an orderly end
Each process is described by:
- Inputs
- Tools & Techniques
- Outputs
3.3 PM Process Links
The process groups are linked by the results they produce—the result or out- come of one often becomes an input to another.
Among the central process groups, the links are iterated—planning provides executing with a documented project plan early on, and then provides documented updates to the plan as the project progresses. These connections are illustrated in Figure 3.
The project management process groups are not discrete, one-time events; they are overlapping activities that occur at varying levels of intensity throughout each phase of the project. These process groups overlap and vary within a phase. Figure 4 illustrates how the process groups overlap and vary within a phase.
3.4 PM Phase interactions
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Finally, the process group interactions also cross phases such that closing one phase provides an input to initiating the next. For example, closing a design phase requires customer acceptance of the design document. Simultaneously, the design document defines the product description for the ensuing implementation phase. This interaction is illustrated in Figure 5. Repeating the initiation processes at the start of each phase helps to keep the project focused on the business need that it was undertaken to address. It should also help ensure that the project is halted if the business need no longer exists, or if the project is unlikely to satisfy that need.
It is important to note that the actual inputs and outputs of the processes depend upon the phase in which they are carried out. Although Figure 5 is drawn with discrete phases and discrete processes, in an actual project there will be many overlaps. The planning process, for example, must not only provide details of the work to be done to bring the current phase of the project to successful completion, but must also provide some preliminary description of work to be done in later phases. This progressive detailing of the project plan is often called rolling wave planning ; indicating that planning is an iterative and ongoing process.
Involving stakeholders in the project phases generally improves the probability of satisfying customer requirements and realizes the buy-in or shared ownership of the project by the stakeholders, which is often critical to project success.
Figure 3: Links among Process Groups in a phase
Planning Processes
Initiating Processes
Controlling Processes Executing Processes
Closing
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