Lecture 2

Software Process

Hoang Huu Hanh

hoanghuuhanh@ptit•edu•vn
What is a Process … ?
 When we provide a service or create a product we always
follow a sequence of steps to accomplish a set of tasks
 You do not usually
 put up the drywall before the wiring for a house is installed or
 bake a cake before all the ingredients are mixed together
 We can think of a series of activities as a process

 Any process has the following characteristics

 It prescribes all of the major activities
 It uses resources and produces intermediate and final products
 It may include sub-processes and has entry and exit criteria
 The activities are organized in a sequence
 Constrains or control may apply to activities
(budget control, availability of resources )

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Software Processes
When the process involves the building of some product we
refer to the process as a life cycle
Software development process – software life cycle

Coherent sets of activities for

 Specifying,
 Designing,
 Implementing and
 Testing software systems

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 Major problems in software developments …

The requirements The developers This is how the problem

understood it in This is how the
specification was is solved now
that way problem was
defined like this
solved before.

This is how the program is

described by marketing This, in fact, is what the
That is the program after
department customer wanted … ;-)
debugging
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The Software Process
 A structured set of activities required to develop a
software system
 Specification
 Development (Design & Implementation)
 Validation
 Evolution
 A software process model is an abstract representation
of a process
 It presents a description of a process from some particular
perspective

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 Generic Software Processes

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Generic Software Process Models
 The waterfall model
 Separate and distinct phases of specification and development
 Evolutionary development
 Specification and development are interleaved
 Formal systems development (example - ASML)
 A mathematical system model is formally transformed to an
implementation
 Reuse-based development
 The system is assembled from existing components

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1. Waterfall Model

Requirements
definition

System and
software design

Implementation
and unit testing

Integr ation and

system testing

Operation and
maintenance

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Waterfall model phases

 Requirements analysis and definition

 System and software design
 Implementation and unit testing
 Integration and system testing
 Operation and maintenance

The drawback of the waterfall model is the difficulty of

accommodating change after the process is underway

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Waterfall model problems
 Inflexible partitioning of the project into distinct stages
 This makes it difficult to respond to changing customer
requirements
 Therefore, this model is only appropriate when the
requirements are well-understood

Waterfall model describes a

process of stepwise refinement
➢ Based on hardware engineering models
➢ Widely used in military and aerospace
industries

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Why Not a Waterfall
 But software is different :
 No fabrication step
 Program code is another design level
 Hence, no “commit” step – software can always be changed…!
 No body of experience for design analysis (yet)
 Most analysis (testing) is done on program code
 Hence, problems not detected until late in the process
 Waterfall model takes a static view of requirements
 Ignore changing needs
 Lack of user involvement once specification is written
 Unrealistic separation of specification from the design

 Doesn’t accommodate prototyping, reuse, etc

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2. Evolutionary development
 Exploratory development
 Objective is to work with customers and to evolve a final system
from an initial outline specification.
 Should start with well-understood requirements.
 The system evolves by adding new features as they are proposed by
customer.
 Throw-away prototyping
 Objective is to understand the system requirements. Should start
with poorly understood requirements
 Develop “quick and dirty” system quickly;
 Expose to user comment;
 Refine;
Until adequate system developed.
 Particularly suitable where:
 detailed requirements not possible;
 powerful development tools (e.g. GUI) available
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Evolutionary development
Concurr ent
activities

Initial
Specification
version

Outline Intermediate
Development
description versions

Final
Validation
version

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Evolutionary development
 Problems
 Lack of process visibility
 Systems are often poorly structured
 Special skills (e.g. in languages for rapid
prototyping) may be required
 Applicability
 For small or medium-size interactive systems
 For parts of large systems (e.g. the user interface)
 For short-lifetime systems

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3. Formal systems development
 Based on the transformation of a mathematical
specification through different representations to an
executable program
 Transformations are ‘correctness-preserving’ so it is
straightforward to show that the program conforms to
its specification

Embodied in the ‘Cleanroom’ approach (which was

originally developed by IBM) to software development

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Formal systems development

Requirements Formal Formal Integration and

definition specification transformation system testing

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 Formal transformations

Formal transformations
T1 T2 T3 T4

Formal R1 Executable
R2 R3
specification program

P1 P2 P3 P4

Proofs of transformation correctness

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Formal systems development
 Problems
 Need for specialised skills and training to apply the technique
 Difficult to formally specify some aspects of the system such as
the user interface
 Applicability
 Critical systems especially those where a safety or security
case must be made before the system is put into operation

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4. Reuse-oriented development
 Based on systematic reuse where systems are integrated
from existing components or COTS (Commercial-off-
the-shelf) systems
 Process stages
 Component analysis
 Requirements modification
 System design with reuse
 Development and integration

This approach is becoming more important but still

limited experience with it
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Reuse-oriented development

Requirements Component Requirements System design

specification analysis modification with reuse

Development System
and integration validation

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Process iteration
 Modern development processes take iteration as
fundamental, and try to provide ways of managing,
rather than ignoring, the risk
 System requirements ALWAYS evolve in the
course of a project so process iteration where earlier
stages are reworked is always part of the process for
large systems
 Iteration can be applied to any of the generic process
models
 Two (related) approaches
 Incremental development
 Spiral development

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5. Incremental development
 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

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Incremental development

Define outline Assign requirements Design system

requirements to increments architecture

Develop system Valida te Integrate Valida te

increment increment increment system
Final
system
System incomplete

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Incremental development 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

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Extreme programming
 New approach to development based on the
development and delivery of very small increments of
functionality

 Relies on constant code improvement, user

involvement in the development team and pairwise
programming

 Design of the test suits first !

Then you perform testing of the system after each small
increment

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6. Spiral development
 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

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Spiral model of the software process
Determine objectives
Evaluate alternatives
alternatives and identify, resolve risks
constraints Risk
analysis
Risk
analysis
Risk
analysis Opera-
Prototype 3 tional
Prototype 2 protoype
Risk
REVIEW analysis Proto-
type 1
Requirements plan Simulations, models, benchmarks
Life-cycle plan Concept of
Operation S/W
requirements Product
design Detailed
Requirement design
Development
plan validation Code
Design Unit test
Integration
and test plan V&V Integr ation
Plan next phase test
Acceptance
Service test Develop, verify
next-level product

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Spiral model sectors
 Objective setting
 Specific objectives for the phase are identified
 Risk assessment and reduction
 Risks are assessed and activities put in place to reduce the key
risks
 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

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 Software Process Major Activities

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I. Software specification
The process of establishing what services are
required and the constraints on the system’s operation
and development

 Requirements engineering process

 Feasibility study
 Requirements elicitation and analysis
 Requirements specification
 Requirements validation

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The requirements engineering process

Feasibility Requirements
study elicitation and
analysis
Requir ements
specification
Feasibility Requirements
report validation
System
models
User and system
requirements

Requirements
document

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II. 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

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Design process activities
 Architectural design
 Abstract specification
 Interface design
 Component design
 Data structure design
 Algorithm design

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 The software design process

Requirements
specification

Design activities

Architectural Interface Component Data Algorithm

Abstract
design design design structure design
specification
design

Software Data
Sy stem Interface Component Algorithm
specification structure
architecture specification specification specification
specification

Design products

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Design methods
Systematic approaches to developing a
software design

 The design is usually documented as a set of graphical

models
 Possible models
 Data-flow model
 Entity-relation-attribute model
 Structural model
 Object models

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Programming and debugging
Translating a design into a program and
removing errors from that program

 Programming is a personal activity - there is no

generic programming process

 Programmers carry out some program testing to

discover faults in the program and remove these faults in
the debugging process

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The debugging process

Locate Design Repair Re-test

error error repair error program

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III Software validation
 Verification and validation 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

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The testing process

Unit
testing
Module
testing
Sub-system
testing
System
testing
Acceptance
testing

Component Integration testing User

testing testing
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Testing stages
 Unit testing
 Individual components are tested
 Module testing
 Related collections of dependent components are tested
 Sub-system testing
 Modules are integrated into sub-systems and tested. The
focus here should be on interface testing
 System testing
 Testing of the system as a whole. Testing of emergent
properties
 Acceptance testing
 Testing with customer data to check that it is acceptable

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 Testing phases

Requir ements System System Detailed

specification specification design design

System Sub-system Module and

Acceptance
integration integration unit code
test plan
test plan test plan and tess

Acceptance System Sub-system

Service
test integration test integration test

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 IV 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

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System evolution

Define system Assess existing Propose system Modify

requirements systems changes systems

Existing New
systems system

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Automated process support (CASE)
 Computer-aided software engineering (CASE) is
software to support software development and evolution
processes
 Activity automation
 Graphical editors for system model development
 Data dictionary to manage design entities
 Graphical UI builder for user interface construction
 Debuggers to support program fault finding
 Automated translators to generate new versions of a
program

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CASE technology
CASE technology has led to significant
improvements in the software process though
not the order of magnitude improvements that were
once predicted
 Software engineering requires creative thought - this
is not readily automatable

 Software engineering is a team activity and, for large

projects, much time is spent in team interactions. CASE
technology does not really support these

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CASE classification
Classification helps us understand the different
types of CASE tools and their support for process
activities
 Functional perspective
 Tools are classified according to their specific function
 Process perspective
 Tools are classified according to process activities that are
supported
 Integration perspective
 Tools are classified according to their organisation into
integrated units

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Functional tool classification
Tool type Examples
Planning tools PERT tools, estimation tools,
spreadsheets
Editing tools Text editors, diagram editors, word
processors
Change management tools Requirements traceability tools, change
control systems
Configuration management tools Version management systems, system
building tools
Prototyping tools Very high-level languages,
user interface generators
Method-support tools Design editors, data dictionaries, code
generators
Language-processing tools Compilers, interpreters
Program analysis tools Cross reference generators, static
analysers, dynamic analysers
Testing tools Test data generators, file comparators
Debugging tools Interactive debugging systems
Documentation tools Page layout programs, image editors
Re-engineering tools Cross-reference systems, program re-
structuring systems

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 Reengineering tools

Testing tools

Debugging tools

Program analysis tools

Language-processing
tools

Method support tools

Prototyping tools

Configuration
management tools

Change management tools

Documentation tools

Editing tools

Planning tools

Specification Design Implementation Verification

and
Validation
Activity-based classification
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CASE integration

 Tools
 Support individual process tasks such as design consistency
checking, text editing, etc.
 Workbenches
 Support a process phase such as specification or design,
Normally include a number of integrated tools
 Environments
 Support all or a substantial part of an entire software
process. Normally include several integrated workbenches

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Tools, workbenches, environments
CASE
technology

Tools Workbenches Environments

File Integrated Process-centred

Editors Compilers
comparators environments environments

Analysis and
Programming Testing
design

Multi-method Single-method General-purpose Language-specific

workbenches workbenches workbenches workbenches

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Key points
 Software processes are the activities involved in
producing and evolving a software system. They are
represented in a software process model
 General activities are specification, design and
implementation, validation and evolution
 Generic process models describe the organisation of
software processes
 Iterative process models describe the software process
as a cycle of activities

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Key points
 Requirements engineering is the process of developing a
software specification
 Design and implementation processes transform the
specification to an executable program
 Validation involves checking that the system meets to its
specification and user needs
 Evolution is concerned with modifying the system after it
is in use
 CASE technology supports software process activities

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 Thank you!

Next lecture… Software Requirements

53 Software Process