Software Processes

Topics covered

 Software process models

 Process activities
 Coping with change
 Process improvement
The software process

 A structured set of activities required to develop a

software system.
 Many different software processes but all involve:
▪ Specification – defining what the system should do;
▪ Design and implementation – defining the organization of the system and implementing
the system;
▪ Validation – checking that it does what the customer wants;
▪ Evolution – changing the system in response to changing customer needs.
 A software process model is an abstract representation of a process. It
presents a description of a process from some particular perspective.
Software process descriptions

 When we describe and discuss processes, we usually talk

about the activities in these processes such as specifying a
data model, designing a user interface, etc. and the ordering of
these activities.
 Process descriptions may also include:
▪ Products, which are the outcomes of a process activity;
▪ Roles, which reflect the responsibilities of the people involved in the
process;
▪ Pre- and post-conditions, which are statements that are true before and
after a process activity has been enacted or a product produced.
Plan-driven and agile processes

 Plan-driven processes are processes where all of the process

activities are planned in advance and progress is measured
against this plan.
 In agile processes, planning is incremental and it is easier to
change the process to reflect changing customer
requirements.
 In practice, most practical processes include elements of both
plan-driven and agile approaches.
 There are no right or wrong software processes.
Software process models
Software process models

 The waterfall model

▪ Plan-driven model. Separate and distinct phases of specification and
development.
 Incremental development
▪ Specification, development and validation are interleaved. May be plan-driven
or agile.
 Integration and configuration
▪ The system is assembled from existing configurable components. May be plan-
driven or agile.
 In practice, most large systems are developed using a process that
incorporates elements from all of these models.
The waterfall model
Waterfall model phases

 There are separate identified phases in the waterfall model:

▪ Requirements analysis and definition
▪ System and software design
▪ Implementation and unit testing
▪ Integration and system testing
▪ Operation and maintenance
 The main drawback of the waterfall model is the difficulty of accommodating
change after the process is underway. In principle, a phase has to be
complete before moving onto the next phase.
Waterfall model problems

 Inflexible partitioning of the project into distinct stages makes

it difficult to respond to changing customer requirements.
▪ Therefore, this model is only appropriate when the requirements are
well-understood and changes will be fairly limited during the design
process.
▪ Few business systems have stable requirements.
 The waterfall model is mostly used for large systems
engineering projects where a system is developed at several
sites.
▪ In those circumstances, the plan-driven nature of the waterfall model
helps coordinate the work.
The waterfall model
Incremental development
Incremental development benefits

 The cost of accommodating changing customer

requirements is reduced.
▪ The amount of analysis and documentation that has to be redone is
much less than is required with the waterfall model.
 It is easier to get customer feedback on the development
work that has been done.
▪ Customers can comment on demonstrations of the software and see
how much has been implemented.
 More rapid delivery and deployment of useful software to the
customer is possible.
▪ Customers are able to use and gain value from the software earlier
than is possible with a waterfall process.
Incremental development problems

 The process is not visible.

▪ Managers need regular deliverables to measure progress. If
systems are developed quickly, it is not cost-effective to
produce documents that reflect every version of the system.
 System structure tends to degrade as new increments
are added.
▪ Unless time and money is spent on refactoring to improve the
software, regular change tends to corrupt its structure.
Incorporating further software changes becomes increasingly
difficult and costly.
Integration and configuration

 Based on software reuse where systems are integrated from

existing components or application systems (sometimes
called COTS -Commercial-off-the-shelf) systems).
 Reused elements may be configured to adapt their
behaviour and functionality to a user’s requirements
 Reuse is now the standard approach for building many types
of business system
Types of reusable software

 Stand-alone application systems (sometimes called COTS)

that are configured for use in a particular environment.
 Collections of objects that are developed as a package to
be integrated with a component framework such as .NET or
J2EE.
 Web services that are developed according to service
standards and which are available for remote invocation.
Reuse-oriented software engineering
Key process stages

 Requirements specification
 Software discovery and evaluation
 Requirements refinement
 Application system configuration
 Component adaptation and integration
Advantages and disadvantages

 Reduced costs and risks as less software is developed from

scratch
 Faster delivery and deployment of system
 But requirements compromises are inevitable so system may
not meet real needs of users
 Loss of control over evolution of reused system elements
Process activities
Process activities

 Real software processes are inter-leaved sequences of technical,

collaborative and managerial activities with the overall goal of
specifying, designing, implementing and testing a software system.
 The four basic process activities of specification, development,
validation and evolution are organized differently in different
development processes.
 For example, in the waterfall model, they are organized in
sequence, whereas in incremental development they are
interleaved.
The requirements engineering process
Software specification

 The process of establishing what services are

required and the constraints on the system’s
operation and development.
 Requirements engineering process
▪ Requirements elicitation and analysis
• What do the system stakeholders require or expect
from the system?
▪ Requirements specification
• Defining the requirements in detail
▪ Requirements validation
• Checking the validity of the requirements
Software design and implementation

 The process of converting the system specification into an

executable system.
 Software design
▪ Design a software structure that realises the specification;
 Implementation
▪ Translate this structure into an executable program;
 The activities of design and implementation are closely
related and may be inter-leaved.
A general model of the design process
System implementation

 The software is implemented either by developing a program

or programs or by configuring an application system.
 Design and implementation are interleaved activities for most
types of software system.
 Programming is an individual activity with no standard process.
 Debugging is the activity of finding program faults and
correcting these faults.
Software validation

 Verification and validation (V & V) is intended to show that a system

conforms to its specification and meets the requirements of the system
customer.
 Involves checking and review processes and system testing.
 System testing involves executing the system with test cases that are derived
from the specification of the real data to be processed by the system.
 Testing is the most commonly used V & V activity.
Stages of testing
Testing stages

 Component testing
▪ Individual components are tested
independently;
▪ Components may be functions or
objects or coherent groupings of these
entities.
 System testing
▪ Testing of the system as a whole.
Testing of emergent properties is
particularly important.
 Customer testing
▪ Testing with customer data to check that
the system meets the customer’s needs.
Testing phases in a plan-driven software process (V-model)
Software evolution

 Software is inherently flexible and can change.

 As requirements change through changing business
circumstances, the software that supports the business must
also evolve and change.
 Although there has been a demarcation between development
and evolution (maintenance) this is increasingly irrelevant as
fewer and fewer systems are completely new.
System evolution
Coping with change
Coping with change

 Change is inevitable in all large software projects.

▪ Business changes lead to new and changed system requirements
▪ New technologies open up new possibilities for improving implementations
▪ Changing platforms require application changes
 Change leads to rework so the costs of change include both rework (e.g. re-
analysing requirements) as well as the costs of implementing new
functionality
Reducing the costs of rework

 Change anticipation, where the software process includes

activities that can anticipate possible changes before significant
rework is required.
▪ For example, a prototype system may be developed to show some key
features of the system to customers.
 Change tolerance, where the process is designed so that
changes can be accommodated at relatively low cost.
▪ This normally involves some form of incremental development. Proposed
changes may be implemented in increments that have not yet been
developed. If this is impossible, then only a single increment (a small part
of the system) may have be altered to incorporate the change.
Coping with changing requirements

 System prototyping, where a version of the system or part of

the system is developed quickly to check the customer’s
requirements and the feasibility of design decisions. This
approach supports change anticipation.
 Incremental delivery, where system increments are delivered
to the customer for comment and experimentation. This
supports both change avoidance and change tolerance.
Software prototyping

 A prototype is an initial version of a system used to

demonstrate concepts and try out design options.
 A prototype can be used in:
▪ The requirements engineering process to help with requirements
elicitation and validation;
▪ In design processes to explore options and develop a UI design;
▪ In the testing process to run back-to-back tests.
Benefits of prototyping

 Improved system usability.

 A closer match to users’ real needs.
 Improved design quality.
 Improved maintainability.
 Reduced development effort.
The process of prototype development
Prototype development

 May be based on rapid prototyping languages or tools

 May involve leaving out functionality
▪ Prototype should focus on areas of the product that are not well-understood;
▪ Error checking and recovery may not be included in the prototype;
▪ Focus on functional rather than non-functional requirements such as reliability and
security
Throw-away prototypes

 Prototypes should be discarded after development as they

are not a good basis for a production system:
▪ It may be impossible to tune the system to meet non-functional
requirements;
▪ Prototypes are normally undocumented;
▪ The prototype structure is usually degraded through rapid change;
▪ The prototype probably will not meet normal organisational quality
standards.
Incremental delivery

 Rather than deliver the system as a single delivery, the

development and delivery is broken down into increments
with each increment delivering part of the required
functionality.
 User requirements are prioritised and the highest priority
requirements are included in early increments.
 Once the development of an increment is started, the
requirements are frozen though requirements for later
increments can continue to evolve.
Incremental development and delivery

 Incremental development
▪ Develop the system in increments and evaluate each increment before
proceeding to the development of the next increment;
▪ Normal approach used in agile methods;
▪ Evaluation done by user/customer proxy.
 Incremental delivery
▪ Deploy an increment for use by end-users;
▪ More realistic evaluation about practical use of software;
▪ Difficult to implement for replacement systems as increments have less
functionality than the system being replaced.
Incremental delivery
Incremental delivery advantages

 Customer value can be delivered with each increment so

system functionality is available earlier.
 Early increments act as a prototype to help elicit
requirements for later increments.
 Lower risk of overall project failure.
 The highest priority system services tend to receive the most
testing.
Incremental delivery problems

 Most systems require a set of basic facilities that are used by

different parts of the system.
▪ As requirements are not defined in detail until an increment is to be
implemented, it can be hard to identify common facilities that are
needed by all increments.
 The essence of iterative processes is that the specification is
developed in conjunction with the software.
▪ However, this conflicts with the procurement model of many
organizations, where the complete system specification is part of the
system development contract.
Process improvement
Process improvement

 Many software companies have turned to software process

improvement as a way of enhancing the quality of their
software, reducing costs or accelerating their development
processes.
 Process improvement means understanding existing
processes and changing these processes to increase product
quality and/or reduce costs and development time.
Approaches to improvement

 The process maturity approach, which focuses on improving

process and project management and introducing good
software engineering practice.
▪ The level of process maturity reflects the extent to which good technical
and management practice has been adopted in organizational software
development processes.
 The agile approach, which focuses on iterative development
and the reduction of overheads in the software process.
▪ The primary characteristics of agile methods are rapid delivery of
functionality and responsiveness to changing customer requirements.
The process improvement cycle
Process improvement activities

 Process measurement
▪ You measure one or more attributes of the software process
or product. These measurements forms a baseline that helps
you decide if process improvements have been effective.
 Process analysis
▪ The current process is assessed, and process weaknesses
and bottlenecks are identified. Process models (sometimes
called process maps) that describe the process may be
developed.
 Process change
▪ Process changes are proposed to address some of the
identified process weaknesses. These are introduced and the
cycle resumes to collect data about the effectiveness of the
changes.
Process measurement

 Wherever possible, quantitative process data

should be collected
▪ However, where organisations do not have clearly defined process
standards this is very difficult as you don’t know what to measure. A
process may have to be defined before any measurement is possible.
 Process measurements should be used to
assess process improvements
▪ But this does not mean that measurements should drive the
improvements. The improvement driver should be the organizational
objectives.
Process metrics

 Time taken for process activities to be

completed
▪ E.g. Calendar time or effort to complete an activity or process.
 Resources required for processes or activities
▪ E.g. Total effort in person-days.
 Number of occurrences of a particular event
▪ E.g. Number of defects discovered.
Capability maturity levels
The SEI capability maturity model

 Initial
▪ Essentially uncontrolled
 Repeatable
▪ Product management procedures defined and used
 Defined
▪ Process management procedures and strategies defined
and used
 Managed
▪ Quality management strategies defined and used
 Optimising
▪ Process improvement strategies defined and used
Key points

 Software processes are the activities involved in producing a

software system. Software process models are abstract
representations of these processes.
 General process models describe the organization of software
processes.
▪ Examples of these general models include the ‘waterfall’ model,
incremental development, and reuse-oriented development.
 Requirements engineering is the process of developing a
software specification.
Key points

 Design and implementation processes are concerned with

transforming a requirements specification into an executable
software system.
 Software validation is the process of checking that the system
conforms to its specification and that it meets the real needs of
the users of the system.
 Software evolution takes place when you change existing
software systems to meet new requirements. The software must
evolve to remain useful.
 Processes should include activities such as prototyping and
incremental delivery to cope with change.
Key points

 Processes may be structured for iterative development and

delivery so that changes may be made without disrupting the
system as a whole.
 The principal approaches to process improvement are agile
approaches, geared to reducing process overheads, and
maturity-based approaches based on better process
management and the use of good software engineering practice.
 The SEI process maturity framework identifies maturity levels
that essentially correspond to the use of good software
engineering practice.