Software Processes

Objectives

 To introduce software process models

 To describe three generic process models and when they
may be used
 To describe outline process models for requirements
engineering, software development, testing and
evolution
 To explain the Rational Unified Process model
 To introduce CASE technology to support software
process activities
Topics covered

 Software process models

 Process iteration
 Process activities
 The Rational Unified Process
 Computer-aided software engineering
4.0. The software process

 A structured set of activities required to

develop a
software system
 Specification;
 Design;
 Validation;
 Evolution.
 A software process model is an abstract
representation of a process. It presents a
description of a process from some particular
perspective.
4.1. Generic software process models

 The waterfall model

 Separate and distinct phases of specification and
development.
 Evolutionary development
 Specification, development and validation are
interleaved.
 Component-based software engineering
 The system is assembled from existing
components.
 There are many variants of these models e.g.
formal development where a waterfall-like
process is used but the specification is a formal
specification that is refined through several
stages to an implementable design.
Waterfall model
Waterfall model phases

 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. One 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.
Evolutionary development

 Exploratory development
 Objective is to work with customers and to evolve a final
system from an initial outline specification. Should start
with well-understood requirements and add new features
as proposed by the customer.
 Throw-away prototyping
 Objective is to understand the system requirements.
Should start with poorly understood requirements to
clarify what is really needed.
Evolutionary development
Evolutionary development

 Problems
 Lack of process visibility;
 Systems are often poorly structured;
 Special skills (e.g. in languages for rapid prototyping) may
be required.
 Applicability
 For small or medium-size interactive systems;
 For parts of large systems (e.g. the user interface);
 For short-lifetime systems.
Component-based software
engineering

 Based on systematic reuse where systems are integrated

from existing components or COTS (Commercial-off-the-
shelf) systems.
 Process stages
 Component analysis;
 Requirements modification;
 System design with reuse;
 Development and integration.
 This approach is becoming increasingly used as
component standards have emerged.
Reuse-oriented development
4.2. Process iteration

 System requirements ALWAYS evolve in the course of a

project so process iteration where earlier stages are
reworked is always part of the process for large
systems.
 Iteration can be applied to any of the generic process
models.
 Two (related) approaches
 Incremental delivery;
 Spiral development.
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
Incremental development
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.
Spiral development

 Process is represented as a spiral rather than as a

sequence of activities with backtracking.
 Each loop in the spiral represents a phase in the
process.
 No fixed phases such as specification or design - loops in
the spiral are chosen depending on what is required.
 Risks are explicitly assessed and resolved throughout
the process.
Spiral model sectors

 Objective setting
 Specific objectives for the phase are identified.
 Risk assessment and reduction
 Risks are assessed and activities put in place to
reduce the key risks.
 Development and validation
 A development model for the system is chosen
which can be any of the generic models.
 Planning
 The project is reviewed and the next phase of
the spiral is planned.
Spiral model of the software process

Determine objectiv es,

Evaluate alternatives
alternatives and
identify , resolv e risks
constr aints Risk
analysis

Risk
anal ysis

Risk
Oper a-
anal ysis
Prototype 3 tional
Prototype 2 pr otoype
Risk
REVIEW anal ysis Proto-
type 1
Requirements plan Simula tions , models , benchmar
ks
Life-cycle plan Concept of
Oper ation S/W
requir ements Product
design Detailed
Requir ement design
Development
plan validation Code
Unit test
Integ ration Design
V&V Integ ration
and test plan
Plan ne xt phase test
Acceptance
Service test Develop , verify
next-le vel pr oduct
4.3. Process activities

 Software specification
 Software design and implementation
 Software validation
 Software evolution
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;
 Requirements elicitation and analysis;
 Requirements specification;
 Requirements validation.
The requirements engineering process
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.
Design process activities

 Architectural design
 Abstract specification
 Interface design
 Component design
 Data structure design
 Algorithm design
The software design process
Structured methods

 Systematic approaches to developing a software design.

 The design is usually documented as a set of graphical
models.
 Possible models
 Object model;
 Sequence model;
 State transition model;
 Structural model;
 Data-flow model.
Programming and debugging

 Translating a design into a program and removing errors

from that program.
 Programming is a personal activity - there is no generic
programming process.
 Programmers carry out some program testing to
discover faults in the program and remove these faults
in the debugging process.
The debugging process
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.
The testing process
Testing stages
 Component or unit 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 (alpha testing)
 Testing with customer data to check that the system meets the customer’s
needs.
Testing phases
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
4.4. The Rational Unified
Process
 A modern process model derived from the work on the
UML (Unified Modeling Language) and associated
process.
 Normally described from 3 perspectives
 A dynamic perspective that shows phases over time;
 A static perspective that shows process activities;
 A practive perspective that suggests good practice.
RUP phase model

Phas e iteration

Inception Elaboration Construction Transition

RUP phases

 Inception
 Establish the business case for the system.
 Elaboration
 Develop an understanding of the problem domain and the
system architecture.
 Construction
 System design, programming and testing.
 Transition
 Deploy the system in its operating environment.
RUP good practice

 Develop software iteratively

 Manage requirements
 Use component-based architectures
 Visually model software
 Verify software quality
 Control changes to software
Static workflows
Wor kflow Description
Busines s modelli ng The bu sines s processes are modell ed using bu sines s use cases.
Requi rements Actors who interact wit h the system are identified and use cases are
deve loped to model t he system requirements.
Ana lysis and de sign A design model is created and do cumented using a rchit ectural
models, componen t models , object models and sequence mod els.
Implementation The co mponents in the system are im plemented and structured into
im plementation sub- systems . Automatic code gen eration from design
models helps accelerate this process.
Test Testing is an it erative p rocess that is carried out in con junc tion wit h
im plementation. System testing foll ows the completion of the
im plementation.
Deployment A produc t release is created, dist ributed to us ers and install ed in their
workplace.
Configuration and This supporting workflow managed change s to the system (see
chang e manag ement Chapter 29).
Project manag ement This supporting workflow manage s the system deve lopment (see
Chapter 5).
Envi ronment This workflow is concerned wit h ma king appropria te software tools
ava il able to the software deve lopment team.
4.5. Computer-aided software engineering

 Computer-aided software engineering (CASE) is

software to support software development and
evolution processes.
 Activity automation
 Graphical editors for system model development;
 Data dictionary to manage design entities;
 Graphical UI builder for user interface
construction;
 Debuggers to support program fault finding;
 Automated translators to generate new versions
of a program.
Case technology

 Case technology has led to significant improvements in

the software process. However, these are not the order
of magnitude improvements that were once predicted
 Software engineering requires creative thought - this is not
readily automated;
 Software engineering is a team activity and, for large
projects, much time is spent in team interactions. CASE
technology does not support these much.
CASE classification

 Classification helps us understand the different

types of CASE tools and their support for
process activities.
 Functional perspective
 Tools are classified according to their specific
function.
 Process perspective
 Tools are classified according to process
activities that are supported.
 Integration perspective
 Tools are classified according to their
organisation into integrated units.
Functional tool classification

Tool type Examples

Planning tools PERT tools, estimation tools, spreadsheets
Editing tools Text editors, diagram editors, word processors
Change ma nagement tools Requirements traceability tools, change control systems
Configuration management tools Version management systems, system b uilding tools
Prototyping tools Very high-level languages, user interface generators
Method-support tools Design editors, data dictionaries, code generators
Language-processing tools Compilers, interpreters
Program analysis tools Cross reference generators, static analysers, dynamic analysers
Testing tools Test data generators, file comp arators
Debugging tools Interactive debugging systems
Documentation tools Page layout programs , ima ge editors
Re-engineering tools Cross-reference systems, program re-structuring systems
Activity-based tool
classification
Re-eng in eering to ols

Testin g too ls

Debugg in g too ls

Pro gram analy sis to ols

Lan guage-p rocessin g

to ols

M eth od sup po r t to ols

Pro toty ping to ols

Co nfiguratio n
management too ls

Ch ange man agement to ols

Do cumentatio n to ols

Editing to ols

Plan ning to ols

Specificatio n Design Implementatio n Verificatio n

and
Validatio n
CASE integration

 Tools
 Support individual process tasks such as design consistency
checking, text editing, etc.
 Workbenches
 Support a process phase such as specification or design,
Normally include a number of integrated tools.
 Environments
 Support all or a substantial part of an entire software
process. Normally include several integrated workbenches.
Tools, workbenches, environments

CASE
techn olo g y

To ols Wo rk ben ch es Env iro nments

File In tegrated Pro cess-centr ed

Edito rs Co mpilers
comp ar ato rs en v iro nments en v iro nments

An aly sis and

Pro gramming Testin g
design

M ulti-meth od Sin gle-metho d Gen er al-p urp ose Lan gua ge-specific
wo rk ben ch es wo rk ben ch es wo rk ben ch es wo rk ben ch es
Key points

 Software processes are the activities involved

in producing and evolving a software system.
 Software process models are abstract
representations of these processes.
 General activities are specification, design and
implementation, validation and evolution.
 Generic process models describe the
organisation of software processes. Examples
include the waterfall model, evolutionary
development and component-based software
engineering.
 Iterative process models describe the software
process as a cycle of activities.
Key points

 Requirements engineering is the process of

developing a software specification.
 Design and implementation processes transform
the specification to an executable program.
 Validation involves checking that the system
meets to its specification and user needs.
 Evolution is concerned with modifying the
system after it is in use.
 The Rational Unified Process is a generic
process model that separates activities from
phases.
 CASE technology supports software process
activities.