A software process is a structured set of activities required to develop a software

system. Note that we are talking about a "software process" -- not a

"software development process."
There are many different kinds of software processes, but each and every one of
them involve these four types of fundamental activities:

• Software specification - defining what the system should do;

• Software design and implementation - defining the organization of the
system and implementing the system;
• Software validation - checking that it does what the customer wants;
• Software 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. When we describe and
discuss software 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 (what), which are the outcomes of a process activity;

• Roles (who), which reflect the responsibilities of the people involved in
the process;
• Pre- and post-conditions (how), which are statements that are true before
and after a process activity has been enacted or a product produced.

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.
Software process models
The waterfall models
Plan-driven model. Separate and distinct phases of specification, software
design, implementation, testing, and maintenance.
Incremental development
Specification, development and validation are interleaved. The system is
developed as a series of versions (increments), with each version adding
functionality to the previous version. May be plan-driven or agile.
Integration and configuration
Based on the existence of a significant number of reusable
components/systems. The system development process focuses on
integrating these components into a system rather than developing them
from scratch. 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

There are separate identified phases in the waterfall model:

Requirement’s analysis and definition
The system's services, constraints, and goals are established by consultation
with system users. They are then defined in detail and serve as a system
specification.
System and software design
The systems design process allocates the requirements to either hardware or
software systems by establishing an overall system architecture. Software
design involves identifying and describing the fundamental software system
abstractions and their relationships.
Implementation and unit testing
 During this stage, the software design is realized as a set of programs or
program units. Unit testing involves verifying that each unit meets its
specification.
Integration and system testing
The individual program units or programs are integrated and tested as a
complete system to ensure that the software requirements have been met.
After testing, the software system is delivered to the customer.
Operation and maintenance
Normally (although not necessarily), this is the longest life cycle phase. The
system is installed and put into practical use. Maintenance involves
correcting errors which were not discovered in earlier stages of the life
cycle, improving the implementation of system units and enhancing the
system's services as new requirements are discovered.
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 include:
Difficult to address change
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.
Very few real-world applications
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.
Incremental development model
Benefits of incremental development:
Lower cost of changes
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.
Frequent feedback
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.
Faster delivery
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.
Problems with incremental development (from the management perspective):
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

This approach is based on systematic reuse where systems are integrated from
existing components or COTS (Commercial-off-the-shelf) systems. Process stages
include:

• Component analysis;
• Requirement’s modification;
• System design with reuse;
• Development and integration.

Reuse is now the standard approach for building many types of business system.
Types of software components:

• Web services that are developed according to service standards and

which are available for remote invocation.
• Collections of objects that are developed as a package to be integrated
with a component framework such as .NET or J2EE.
• Stand-alone commercial-off-the-shelf systems (COTS) that are
configured for use in a particular environment.

Software 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. In the
waterfall model, they are organized in sequence, whereas in incremental
development they are interleaved.
Software specification
The process of establishing what services are required and the constraints on
the system's operation and development.
 Requirements engineering process:

• Feasibility study: is it technically and financially feasible to build the

system?
• Requirement’s elicitation and analysis: what do the system stakeholders
require or expect from the system?
• Requirement’s specification: defining the requirements in detail
• Requirement’s 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 realizes the

specification;
• Implementation: translate this structure into an executable program;

The activities of design and implementation are closely related and may be
interleaved.
Design activities include:

• Architectural design: identify the overall structure of the system, the

principal components (sometimes called sub-systems or modules), their
relationships and how they are distributed.
• Interface design: define the interfaces between system components.
• Component design: take each system component and design how it will
operate.
• Database design: design the system data structures and how these are to
be represented in a database.

Software validation
Verification and validation (V & V) are intended to show that a system
conforms to its specification and meets the requirements of the system
customer.

• Validation: are we building the right product (what the customer wants)?
• Verification: are we building the product, right?

V & V 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 and includes the
following stages:

• Development or 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.
• Acceptance testing: testing with customer data to check that the system
meets the customer's needs.

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.
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-
analyzing requirements) as well as the costs of implementing new functionality.
Two strategies to reduce the costs of rework:
Change avoidance
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
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 been altered to incorporate the change.
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.

Prototypes may be based on rapid prototyping languages or tools. They 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.

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 organizational quality
standards.

Incremental development/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 prioritized 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.
Advantages of incremental delivery:
 • 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
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.
Process maturity approach
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.
Agile approach
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.
Process improvement activities form a continuous cycle with a feedback loop:

• Measure one or more attributes of the software process or product.

These measurements form a baseline that help decide if process
improvements have been effective.
 • Analyze the current process and identify any bottlenecks.
• Change the process 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.

• Process measurements should be used to assess process improvements.
• Metrics may include:
o Time taken for process activities to be completed, e.g.,
calendar time or effort to complete an activity or process.
o Resources required for processes or activities, e.g., total effort
in person-days.
o Number of occurrences of a particular event, e.g., number of
defects discovered.

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
• Optimizing: Process improvement strategies defined and used