UNITENIANS

Software Processes

Software process is a collection of work activities, actions, tasks which have to be performed in order for a software is to be created. A process model is where these activities reside and the definition of their relationship with the process and with one another. The technical work hierarchy – activities encompassing actions, populated by tasks. Each action is defined by a set of task that defines the work, work products, quality assurance filters and milestones that will be used to indicate the project progress.

Process activities involves framework activities and umbrella activities. Framework activities are applicable to all software projects regardless of size and complexity which includes

communication. planning. modeling, construction and deployment. Umbrella activities on the other hand are complementary activities applied throughout a software project and help manage and also control progress, quality, change and risk. This involves project tracking and control, risk management, software quality assurance, technical reviews, configuration management and many more.

Process flow describes how the framework activities are organized with respect to sequence and time. This well defines the basic aspect of software process modeling. The flows consist of linear, iterative, evolutionary and parallel process flows.

Linear flow executes the framework activities in sequence.

Iterative flow repeats one or more of the activities before proceeding to the next activity.

Evolutionary flow executes the activities in a circular manner throughout the project.

Parallel flow executes one or more activities simultaneously with other activities.

Prescriptive process models are an orderly and structured to Software Engineering. It consists of waterfall model, incremental model, evolutionary model and concurrent model.

Waterfall model represents elements of a linear process flow.

Incremental model combines elements of linear and parallel process flows.

Evolutionary model follows the evolutionary process flow that combines elements of linear and iterative process flows. It is also broken down to two specific models which are prototyping and spiral.

Concurrent model combines elements of iterative and parallel process flows.

These are not the only process models available when engineering a software. There are specialized models as well as newer models that are being made as we speak. Software is ever changing and is continuously developed in different ways depending on the team assigned to a project.

The method best used to study this module is understanding instead of memorizing. We should understand the process flows and how to implement them in the process models as these process models basically consists of combinations of process flows.

Numerous topics should be added to this module as newer process models are created but the prescriptive process models are sufficient for us to get an overall understanding of how process models work and should enable us to understand newer and more complex process models.

Drawing out the process models to better understand the flow and stages in designing process models is the best learning technique to apply during lecture and in class activities for this module.

The lesson learnt from this module is that process flows are very important in order to design and develop a software. Also there are readily available models created by others that can be used in our own future projects.