Process 2

Personal And Team Process Models THE best software process is one which is close to the people who will be doing the work. If a software process model has been developed at a corporate or organization level ,it can be effective only if it is amenable to the significant to meet the need of the project team to complete the software engineering work. Each software engineer would create a process that best fits his/her own needs, and at the same time meets the needs of the team and the organization. The team itself can create a process and the organization can also create a process.

It is possible to create a “Personal Software Process” and “Team Software Process". Both require hard work, training and coordination, both are achievable. Personal Software Process(PSP) Every developer uses some process to build computer software.  The process may be adhoc,and change on a daily basis, may not be effective or even successful but the process dose exist.  An individual must move through 4 phases, each requiring training and careful instrumentation.  The personal software process(PSP) emphasizes personal measurement of the work product.

 PSP makes the practitioner responsible for project planning and empowers the practitioner to control the quality of all software work products that are developed. The PSP process model defines 5 frame work activities : Planning, high-level design, high-level design review , development and postmortem.  Planning This activity isolates requirements and based on these, develop both the size and resource estimates.  A defect estimate is made. All metrics are recorded on worksheets/templates.  the development tasks are identified and a project schedule is created.

High-level design External specifications for each component to be constructed are developed and a component design is created.  Prototypes are built when uncertainty exists . All issues are recorded and tracked. High-Level Design review Formal verification methods are applied to uncover errors in the design. Metrics are maintained for all important tasks and work results. Development The component level design is refined and reviewed. Code is generated, reviewed, compiled, and tested. Metrics are maintained for all important tasks and work results.

Postmortem Using the measures and metrics collected the effectiveness of the process is determined. Measures and metrics should provide guidance for modifying the process to improve its effectiveness.  PSP stresses the need for each software engineer to identify errors early and it is important to identify the errors and these are identified by rigorous assessment activity performed on all work products produced by the software Engineer.  PSP represents a disciplined, metric-based approach to software engineering. When PSP is properly introduced to software engineers it results in the improvement in Software engineering productivity and software quality are significant.

PSP is intellectually challenging and demands a level of commitment that is not always possible to obtain.  Training is relatively lengthy, and training costs are high.

Team Software Process(TSP)  The goal of the TSP is to build a “self-directed” Project team that organizes itself to produce highquality software.

Objectives for TSP  Build self-directed teams that plan and track there work, establish goals, and own their processes and plans.

These can be pure software teams or integrated product Teams(IPT) of 3 to about 20 engineers. Show managers how to coach and motivate their teams and how to help them to sustain peak performance. Accelerate software process improvement by making CMMI level-5 behavior normal and expected.  Provide improvement guidance to high-maturity organizations. Facilitate university teaching of industrial-grade team skills. A self-directed team has a consistent understanding of its overall goals and objectives. It defines roles and responsibilities for each team member, tracks quantitative process data.

TSP defines some of the following framework activities: launch, high-level design, implementation, integration and test, and postmortem. Like PSP these activities enable the team to plan , design , and construct software in a disciplined manner and measure the process and the product.  TSP makes use of a wide variety of Scripts, forms, and Standards that serve to guide team members in their work.  Scripts define specific process activities (i.e. project launch , design , implementation , integration , and testing and postmortem) and other detailed work functions (E.g.: Development planning, Requirements development, unit test) that are part of the team process.

E.g.: Consider the initial process activity-project launch .Each project is “launched “ using a sequence of tasks that enable the team to establish a solid basis for starting of the project : The following is the launch-script. Review project objectives with management and agree on and document team goals. Establish team roles. Define the team development process. Make a quality plan and set quality targets. Plan for the needed support facilities. Produce an overall development strategy. Make a development project for the entire project. Make a detailed plans for each engineer for the next phase.

Merge the individual plans into a team plan. Rebalance team workload to achieve a minimum overall schedule. Assess project risks and assign tracking responsibility for each key risk. The launch activity can be applied prior to each TSP frame work activity. It accommodates the iterative nature of many projects and allows the team to adopt the changing customer needs and lessons learned from previous activities. TSP recognizes the best software teams are Self-directed. Team members set project objectives ,adapt the process to meet their needs etc. and work continually improve the team’s approach to Software Engineering.

Like PSP TSP is a rigorous approach to software engineering that provide distinct and quantifiable benefits in productivity and quality. The team must work with full commitment to the process and must undergo training to ensure that the approach is properly applied.

PROCESS TECHNOLOGY The Process technology tools have been developed to help software organizations analyze their current process.  Process technology tools allow a software organization to build an automated model of the common process framework , task sets, and umbrella activities. The model normally represented as a network can then be analyzed to determine typical workflow and alternative process structures that might lead to reduced development time or cost.  Once an acceptable process has been created other process technology tools can be used to allocate ,monitor and control all software Engineering tasks defined as a part of the process model.

The process technology tools can also be used to develop checklist for work tasks and for work products to be produced and used to coordinate the use of other computer-aided software engineering tools appropriate to a particular work task

PRODUCT AND PROCESS If the process is weak, the end product will undoubtedly suffer ,but an over-reliance on process is also dangerous.