SOFTWARE PROCESSES

Objectives
Software process models
Process activities
Coping with change
The Rational Unified Process
An example of a modern software process.
 The software process
 A structured set of activities required to develop a
software system.
 Many different software processes but all involve:
 Specification –The functionality of the software and constraints on
its operation must be defined.
 Design and implementation – The software to meet the
specification must be produced
 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; e.g. model of
software architecture
 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.
 Pre condition for architecture design- All requirements has been approved
before design phase begins
 Post condition- UML models describing the architecture has been reviewed
 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.
 There are no right or wrong software processes.
 Software process models
 The waterfall model
 Plan-driven model. Activities are planned in advance and
progress is measured against plan
 Incremental development
 Specification, development and validation are interleaved.
 Reuse-oriented software engineering
 The system is assembled from existing 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
System services, constraints and goals are established
allocates the requirements to either hardware or software,
identify and describe the fundamental
software system abstractions and their relationships

software design is realized

as a set of programs or program units

The individual program units or programs

are integrated and tested as a complete system

The system is installed and put into practical use.

Maintenance involves correcting errors, improving the
implementation and enhancing system with new
requirements
 Waterfall model problems
 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.
 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.
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.
Plan-driven and agile/incremental processes

Plan-driven methods Agile methods

High criticality Low criticality
Junior developers Senior developers
Requirements do not change Requirements change often
often
Large number of developers Small number of developers
Culture that demands order Culture that responds to
change
 Reuse-oriented software engineering

 Based on systematic reuse where systems are integrated

from existing components or COTS (Commercial-off-the-
shelf) systems. e.g. Word processor
 Process stages
 Component analysis;
 Requirements modification;
 System design with reuse;
 Development and integration.
 Reuse is now the standard approach for building many
types of business system
 Reuse-oriented software engineering
Component analysis: a search is made for components to implement that
specification. Usually, there is no exact match
Requirements modification the requirements are analyzed using information about the
components that have been discovered. They are then modified

System design with reuse: Framework of the system is designed or an existing framework is
reused by take into account the components that are reused. if reusable components not
available, some new software may have to be designed
Development and integration Software that cannot be externally procured is
developed, and the components and COTS systems are integrated to create the
new system.
 Types of software component
 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 software systems (COTS) that are
configured for use in a particular environment.
Reuse-oriented SE: Pros and cons
 Reduce the amount of software to be developed and so
reducing cost and risks
 It usually also leads to faster delivery of the software.
 Requirements compromises are inevitable and this may
lead to a system that does not meet the real needs of
users
 Some control over the system evolution is lost as new
versions of the reusable components are not under the
control of the organization using them.
 Software Process activities
 Real software processes are 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.
Feasibility
study

Software specification (Requirements Engineering)

 The process of establishing what services are required and the

and analysis

constraints on the system’s operation and development.

Req Elicit

 Requirements engineering process

 Feasibility study
Is it technically and financially feasible to build the system?
 Requirements elicitation and analysis
Specification

What do the system stakeholders require or expect from the

system?
Req

 Requirements specification
Defining the requirements in detail
 Requirements validation
Checking the requirements for consistency and completeness
Validation
Req
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.
A general model of the design process
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.
Design activities

Interface design, where you define the interfaces between

system components.
Design activities

Component design, where you take each system component

and design how it will operate.
Design activities

Database design, where you design the system data

structures and how these are to be represented in a database.
 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
 Development or component testing
 The components making up the system are tested by the
people developing the system.
 Individual components are tested independently;
 System testing
 Testing of the system as a whole.
 Finding errors that result from unanticipated
interactions between components and component
interface problems.
 Acceptance testing
 Testing with customer data to check that the system
meets the customer’s needs.
Testing phases in a plan-driven software
process
 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
 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.
 Key points
 Requirements engineering is the process of developing a
software specification.
 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.
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 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.
 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;
 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

Objectives: (1) To develop a system to prototype the user interface, (2) To develop
a system to validate functional system requirements etc

Functionality: Relax non-functional requirements such as response

time and memory utilization, standards of reliability and program quality

Evaluation: Provision must be made for user training;

prototype objectives should be used to derive a plan for evaluation;
Users need time to become comfortable with a new system and to settle into a
normal pattern of usage
 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.
 Boehm’s spiral model
 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.
Boehm’s spiral model of the
software process
 Spiral model sectors
 Objective setting
 Specific objectives for the phase are identified. Project
risks are identified
 Risk assessment and reduction
 Risks are assessed and activities put in place to reduce
the key risks. For example, if there is a risk that the
requirements are inappropriate, a prototype system
may be developed.
 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 usage
Spiral model has been very influential in
helping people think about iteration in
software processes and introducing the
risk-driven approach to development.
In practice, however, the model is rarely
used as published for practical software
development.
The Rational Unified Process
 A modern generic process derived from the work on the
UML 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.
Phases in the Rational Unified
Process
 RUP phases
 Inception
 Establish the business case for the system.
Identify people and systems interacting with this system
Expected budget, revenue
 Elaboration
 Develop an understanding of the problem domain, requirement
model, key project risks, project plan, development plan and the
system architecture
 Construction
 System design, programming and testing, documentation.
 Transition
 Deploy the system in its operating environment.
 RUP iteration

 In-phase iteration
Each phase is iterative with results developed
incrementally.
 Cross-phase iteration
As shown by the loop in the RUP model, the
whole set of phases may be enacted
incrementally.
Static workflows in the Rational Unified Process

Workflow Description
Business modelling The business processes are modelled using business
use cases.
Requirements Actors who interact with the system are identified and
use cases are developed to model the system
requirements.

Analysis and design A design model is created and documented using

architectural models, component models, and
sequence models.

Implementation The components in the system are implemented and

structured into implementation sub-systems.
Automatic code generation from design models helps
accelerate this process.
 Static workflows in the Rational
Unified Process
Workflow Description
Testing Testing is an iterative process that is carried out in conjunction
with implementation. System testing follows the completion of
the implementation.
Deployment A product release is created, distributed to users and installed in
their workplace.
Configuration and This supporting workflow managed changes to the system .
change management
Project management This supporting workflow manages the system development .
Environment This workflow is concerned with making appropriate software
tools available to the software development team.
 RUP good practice
 Develop software iteratively
 Plan increments based on customer priorities and
deliver highest priority increments first.
 Manage requirements
 Explicitly document customer requirements and keep
track of changes to these requirements.
 Use component-based architectures
 Organize the system architecture as a set of reusable
components.
 RUP good practice
 Visually model software
 Use graphical UML models to present static and
dynamic views of the software.
 Verify software quality
 Ensure that the software meet’s organizational quality
standards.
 Control changes to software
 Manage software changes using a change management
system and configuration management tools.
 Key points
 Processes should include activities to cope with change.
This may involve a prototyping phase that helps avoid
poor decisions on requirements and design.
 Processes may be structured for iterative development
and delivery so that changes may be made without
disrupting the system as a whole.
 The Rational Unified Process is a modern generic process
model that is organized into phases (inception,
elaboration, construction and transition) but separates
activities (requirements, analysis and design, etc.) from
these phases.