Empirical Studies Applied to Software Process Models

Working Group Report: ICSE'99 Workshop on Empirical Studies of Software Development and Evolutio

Analysis and Comparison of Software Process Models

The field of software engineering is related to the development of software. Large software needs systematic development. Simple programs can be developed in isolation and there may not be any systematic approach being followed. From the last few years, the computer industry has undergone revolutionary changes in hardware as well as in software. This paper deals with the software management a process that specifies the area of software development through the process models, which are known as software development life cycle. A brief overview about different models of software development and make a comparison between them.

Autonomies in a Software Process Landscape

Until now autonomy properties have been mainly discussed in the research area of database management systems, agents and robotic systems. We address these properties to software process models, and distinguish between data autonomy, operation autonomy and communication autonomy. In this paper we develop a classification framework of different granularity levels and different degrees for each of the autonomy types. We analyze the autonomy of an example software process landscape modelled with a Petri based net notation. The example process landscape represents software process models for the development of multimedia applications. Detailed analyses of the example check the classification framework, and consider the impact of autonomy properties on software processes and on software process management

Software process modelling as relationships between tasks

Systematic formulation of software process models is currently a challenging problem in software engineering. We present an approach to define models covering the phases of specification, design, implementation and testing of software systems in the component programming framework, taking into account non-functional aspects of software (efficiency, etc.), automatic reusability of implementations in systems and also prototyping techniques involving both specifications and implementations. Our proposal relies on the identification of a catalogue of tasks that appear during these phases which satisfy some relationships concerning their order of execution. A software process model can be defined as the addition of more relationships over these tasks using a simple, modular process language. We have developed also a formal definition of correctness of a software development with respect to a software process model, based on the formulation of models as graphs.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

An incremental method for visual analysis of software process models

Specifying process models in SPEM 2.0 is a costly task by the number of details to be defined. Normally this specification evolves in the task of defining the process or an improvement project. In software development can be constructed and evaluated deliverables, in the same way, would expect that with the definition of the process occur the same. However, the practical evaluation stage of a process is much longer, costly and complex than the same stage of definition. This paper proposes the use of AVISPA-Method (Incremental method for visual analysis of software process models), a process visual analysis tool, as a lightweight method for conducting early evaluations of the process model at a much lower cost. To evidence the applicability of the method, a case study has been developed, in which the Small-SPL process model has been evaluated and incrementally debugged following this approach. During its modeling process, AVISPA-Method was used at the end each ofthe planned versions during its specification. This contributed to debug the specification of each of the three versions and a notable improvement in the specification of the process.Especificar modelos de procesos en SPEM 2.0 es una tarea costosa por la cantidad de detalles a ser definidos. Normalmente dicha especificación evoluciona en la labor de definición del proceso o un proyecto de mejoramiento. En el desarrollo de software se pueden construir y evaluar entregables, de la misma forma se esperaría que con la definición del proceso ocurra igual. Sin embargo, la etapa de evaluación práctica de un proceso es mucho más larga, costosa y compleja que la misma etapa de definición. En este artículo se propone el uso de AVISPA-Method (Método incremental para el análisis visual de modelos de proceso software), como un método liviano para realizar evaluaciones tempranas del modelo de proceso a un costo mucho más reducido que su evaluación en la aplicación real, este método emplea a AVISPA (Analysis and Visualization for Software Process Assessment) como herramienta para la evaluación del modelo de proceso. Para mostrar la aplicabilidad del método,se ha desarrollado un estudio de caso, en el que el modelo de proceso Small-SPL se ha evaluado y depurado incrementalmente siguiendo este enfoque. Durante su proceso de modelado, AVISPAMethod, fue utilizado al terminar cada una de las versiones planificadas durante su especificación. Esto contribuyó a depurar la especificación de cada una de las tres versiones y a un notable mejoramiento en la especificación del proceso

SP2MN: a Software Process Meta-Modeling Language

In the last two decades, software process modeling has been an area of interest within both academia and industry. Software process modeling aims at defining and representing software processes in the form of models. A software process model represents the medium that allows better understanding, management and control of the software process. Software process metamodeling rather, provides standard metamodels which enable the defining of customized software process models for a specific project in hand by instantiation. Several software process modeling/meta-modeling languages have been introduced to formalize software process models. Nonetheless, none of them has managed to introduce a compatible yet precise language to include all necessary concepts and information for software process modeling. This paper presents Software Process Meta-Modeling and Notation (SP2MN); a meta-modeling language that provides simple and expressive graphical notations for the aim of software process modeling. SP2MN has been evaluated based upon the well-known ISPW-6 process example, a standard benchmark problem for software process modeling. SP2MN has proved that it presents a valid and expressive software process modeling language

A Non-Parametric Comparison between Advances Software Engineering Process Model

Software development process provides detailed guideline for development testing and maintenance of software products. It deals with the risks associated withsoftware development and a road map to manage its complexities. In other words, software development processes are considered as optimized solution specific to any particular software product development. There are many software process models available in literature. This research performs a non-parametric comparison between formal process model, agile process model and agent based process model to aid software community in developing quality software product