A method for assembling a project-specific software process definition

R.H. Lobsitz
1996 Proceedings of HICSS-29: 29th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences  
A software process definition embodies a complex interaction of development and management activities, products, tools, and metrics. Establishing an initial process definition for any organization is a difficult and time-consuming effort. Modifying the initial definition also represents an intense effort that requires a well defined process of organizational coordination and communication. Organizations could reduce much of the cost associated with the modification of a sofiare process if the
more » ... itial definition includeda viable planning methodfor tailoring a genericprocess to each project rather than forcing the project to fit a standard process. This paper is based on a planning method that has evolved within TAX, it describes the steps required to create a tailored process definition for specific projects based on the generic process definition. 1: The purpose of this paper As organizations strive to become more process oriented in their approach toward Software Development Projects, the very process of defining standard methods and procedures can significantly reduce the organization's ability to utilize new tools and methods. In a competitive marketplace, where the assimilation of rapid advances in technology is critical for survival, organizations are forced to decide between "doing it right" and reverting to ad hoc procedures just to "get the job done." To avoid this conflict, the new tools and techniques have to be easily assimilated into an overall technical and project management approach that is adaptable without having to be reinvented each time. This paper describes a planning process that has evolved within our organization, which utilizes a "Build Process Model" (based on entity process modeling [ 1,2] ) to refine a quick turnaround project plan. This approach allows the planning team to understand the impact of new software engineering tools and techniques while retaining maximum reuse of previously defined standard project processes. 2: Defiiing a project-specific process TASC has developed alarge number of advanced technology systems for a broad range of government and commercial customers. In our process improvement work over the last five years, we have had to develop a highly tailorable software process model to meet the needs of these diverse projects. We have developed a set of standard process components that include development procedures, life cycle models, project phase descriptions, project milestones, and baselines. The method has been applied to both object-oriented and structured development paradigms. It incorporates the process requirements for the waterfall, incremental, and spiral life cycle models. In the competitive marketplace, we have found it necessary to plan a project in two passes. The objective of the first pass is to assess the project's requirements, deliverable products, and milestones, to propose an initial technical solution, and estimate a rough build cost. The results of this process establishes the project's high-level technical approach, risk factors, and cost targets. The rough build cost is an input to the management decision to pursue the project. Once a decision is made to pursue a project, a second, more thorough pass tailors the technical approach to add quality milestones, define the content of baselines, and tailor the content of the deliverables. The result is a project plan that contains enough detail to estimate each of the elements of project cost as well as to quantify the project risks prior to beginning the project. The TASC Software Engineering Process Working Group (TSEPWG) started with the charter to institutionalize the best industry practices in our System Integration projects. To accomplish this we created a set of process components and other supporting tools that could be readily tailored to a project's development requirements. Where practical, components have been designed to be used in a stand-alone mode, or easily modified to fit a project's specific requirements. The TSEPWG makes these standard assets available to support project planning and execution. These assets include planning tools, costing models, definition of standard deliverables, development tools and environments, and 722 1060-3425/96 $5.00 0 1996 IEEE
doi:10.1109/hicss.1996.495526 dblp:conf/hicss/Lobsitz96 fatcat:yl6yghsm4rbcphoqlxcmxu3ksu