Chapter 2 – Software Processes
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The waterfall model
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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 completed before moving onto the
next phase.
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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.
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Incremental development
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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Key process stages
Requirements specification
Software discovery and evaluation
Requirements refinement
Application system configuration
Component adaptation and integration
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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
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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.
For example, in the waterfall model, they are organized in
sequence, whereas in incremental development they are
interleaved.
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The requirements engineering process
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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
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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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.
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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 (subsystems or
modules), their relationships and how they are distributed.
Database design, where you design the system data
structures and how these are to be represented in a database.
Interface design, where you define the interfaces between
system components.
Component selection and design, where you search for
reusable components. If unavailable, you design how it will
operate.
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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.
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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.
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Stages of testing
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Stages of Testing
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.
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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.
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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-analyzing requirements) as well as the costs of
implementing new functionality
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Benefits of prototyping
Improved system usability.
A closer match to users’ real needs.
Improved design quality.
Improved maintainability.
Reduced development effort.
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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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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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