Software Processes Models
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The software process
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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.
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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.
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Software process models
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The waterfall model
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Waterfall model phases
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Waterfall model problems
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Incremental development
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Incremental development benefits
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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.
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Reuse-oriented software engineering
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Reuse-oriented software engineering
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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 inter-
leaved.
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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?
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
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The requirements engineering process
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Software design and implementation
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A general model of the design process
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Design activities
Architectural design, where you 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, where you define the interfaces
between system components.
Component design, where you take each system
component and design how it will operate.
Database design, where you design the system data
structures and how these are to be represented in a
database.
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Software validation
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Stages of testing
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Testing stages
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Testing phases in a plan-driven software
process
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Software evolution
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System evolution
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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
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Reducing the costs of rework
Change avoidance, 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.
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Software prototyping
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Benefits of prototyping
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The process of prototype development
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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
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Throw-away prototypes
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Incremental delivery
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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.
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Incremental delivery
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