INTRODUCTION

Project management is used increasingly in the information and library sector (ILS) as an

effective approach for: developing new initiatives to improve service delivery; achieving

goals within a framework of public sector management; managing change within

information related organizations.

These learning objects have been developed as an ILS commissioned project for the Higher

Education Agency. They provide concise introductions to project management set within

the context of the information and library sector. Their purpose is not to replicate the wide

range of literature and web resources on project management, but to provide useful content

and case studies suitable for use with students on ILS professional educational courses.

These resources can also be used for staff training within ILS organizations and can be

adapted by trainers and educators to fit the user group.

Process is a term used to describe the people, methods, and tools used to produce

software products. Improving the quality of the product is believed to be based on

improving the process used to develop the product. Because software is intangible and not

subject to the same physical constraints as hardware and many manufacturing products,

defining the software process can be difficult. Software engineering process is defined as

the system of all tasks and the supporting tools, standards, methods, and practices involved

in the production and evolution of a software product throughout the software life cycle.

Process-driven software development implies that organizational process is adapted to

meet project and product quality goals. Software development should be guided by an

explicit process, with environment and tools integrated to support this process. Process
definition is a prerequisite to process improvement. Defined processes promote

collaboration and teamwork by making activities, roles, and dependencies visible. Process

management supports improvement of the defined process through measurement and

feedback.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Walter Shewart, a physicist, worked at AT&T Bell Labs in statistical process control in the

1930s. W. Edwards Deming based his work on the Shewart improvement cycle (a

sequence of four steps that are repeated indefinitely; see Table 1), which he successfully

adapted to Japanese industry after World War II. Current Japanese management strategy

continues to focus on quality improvement because the Japanese believe that the

productivity and profit improvements will follow naturally. Many companies are applying

the ideas of quality or process improvement across their organization. Software process

improvement is the application of these concepts to software development.

 LITERATURE REVIEW

SOFTWARE PROCESSES MODEL

A Process Model describes the sequence of phases for the entire lifetime of a product.

Therefore, it is sometimes also called Product Life Cycle. This covers everything from the

initial commercial idea until the final de-installation or disassembling of the product after

its use.

Usually there are three main phases:

i. concept phase

ii. implementation phase

iii. maintenance phase

Each of these main phases usually has some sub-phases, like a requirements engineering

phase, a design phase, a build phase and a testing phase. The sub-phases may occur in

more than one main phase each of them with a specific peculiarity depending on the main

phase.

Besides the phases a Process Model shall also define at least:

The activities that have to be carried out in each of the sub-phases, including the

sequence in which these activities have to be carried out.

The roles of the executors that have to carry out the activities, including a description

of their responsibilities and required skills.

The work products that have to be established or updated in each of the activities.

Besides the final product there are usually several other items that have to be during the
 development of a product. These are for example requirements and design document,

test specifications and test reports, etc.

Therefore, a Process Model provides a fixed framework that guides a project in:

Development of the product

Planning and organizing the project

Tracking and running the project

Fig 1.0 Software Process Model

Fig 1.2 Water Fall model

The phases of "The Waterfall Model" are:

Requirement Analysis & Definition: All requirements of the system which has to be

developed are collected in this step. Like in other process models requirements are split up

in functional requirements and constraints which the system has to fulfil.

System Design: The system has to be properly designed before any implementation is

started. This involves an architectural design which defines and describes the main blocks

and components of the system, their interfaces and interactions.

Software Design: Based on the system architecture which defines the main software

blocks the software design will break them further down into code modules. The interfaces

and interactions of the modules are described, as well as their functional contents.

Coding: Based on the software design document the work is aiming to set up the defined
modules or units and actual coding is started. The system is first developed in smaller

portions called units.

Software Integration & Verification: Each unit is developed independently and can be

tested for its functionality. This is the so called Unit Testing. It simply verifies if the

modules or units to check if they meet their specifications. This involves functional tests

at the interfaces of the modules, but also more detailed tests which consider the inner

structure of the software modules. During integration the units which are developed and

tested for their functionalities are brought together. The modules are integrated into a

complete system and tested to check if all modules cooperate as expected.

System Validation: After successfully integration including the related tests the complete

system has to be tested against its initial requirements. This will include the original

hardware and environment, whereas the previous integration and testing phase may still be

performed in a different environment or on a test bench.

Operation & Maintenance: The system is handed over to the customer and will be used

the first time by him. Naturally the customer will check if his requirements were

implemented as expected but he will also validate if the correct requirements have been set

up in the beginning. In case there are changes necessary it has to be fixed to make the

system usable or to make it comply to the customer wishes. In most of the "Waterfall

Model" descriptions this phase is extended to a never ending phase of "Operations &

Maintenance". All the problems which did not arise during the previous phases will be

solved in this last phase.