Lecture Software process improvement: Lesson 22 - Dr. Ghulam Ahmad Farrukh

Lecture Software process improvement: Lesson 22 provide students with knowledge about: review up to mid-term; software process; characteristics of software processes; requires creativity; interactions between a wide range of different people; engineering judgment; background knowledge; experience;... Please refer to the detailed content of the lecture!

Lecture #22

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• An instruction manual for a kitchen 

dishwasher describes the process of using that machine to clean dishes

• A cookery book describes a set of processes 

to prepare and cook various different types 

of meals

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• A procedures manual in a bank describes 

the ways in which different banking 

processes such as agreeing a personal loan, correcting errors, etc. should be carried out

• A quality manual for software development describes the processes which should be 

used to assure the quality of the software. It may include descriptions of standards 

which are basis for the quality checking 5

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Software Processes

• Software engineering, as a discipline, has many processes

• These processes help in performing 

different software engineering activities in 

an organized manner

important part of an organization ?

following slide to be inserted

Examples of Software Processes

• Software engineering development process (SDLC)

• Requirements engineering process

• Design process

• Quality assurance process

• Change management process

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Six Steps to Software 

Improvements ­ 2

• Produce a plan to accomplish the required actions

• Commit the resources to execute the plan

• Start over at step 1

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• Typically task­oriented

procedure to guide execution of a task

• ETVX

• IDEF0

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Predictable Process

Continuously Improving Process

Process measured and controlled

Focus on process improvement

5.Optimizing

Project Management

Integrated Engineering Process

Product and Process Quality

Managing Change

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• People were successfully using the 

Capability Maturity Model, which was 

designed for improving software processes and measuring the maturity of software 

• Historically:  Depends on the discipline that you want to model

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development System Engineering CMM continuous system 

engineering System Engineering Capability Model continuous system 

engineering Software Acquisition CMM staged software 

acquisition System Security Engineering CMM continuous security 

engineering Personal Software Process staged individual 

software development

engineering, systems  engineering, and acquisition

product development

SPICE Model continuous software 

development

Software CMM

Systems Security Engr CMM

Systems Security Engr CMM

Systems Engr CMM

Systems Engr CMM

People CMM

People CMM

ZZZ CMM

ZZZ CMM

FAA iCMM

FAA iCMM

IPD CMM

IPD CMM

Software Acq CMM

Software Acq CMM EIA 731

• Integrates systems and software disciplines into one process improvement framework

• Provides a framework for introducing new disciplines as needs arise

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• Some organizations see themselves as performing  just one discipline

– Acquisition can involve both

• Communication and cooperation with other 

disciplines, even if they are external to our 

CMMI

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CMMI Models

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CMMISE/SW

-Staged

Representation

SE/SW

CMMI-Continuous

Representation

• Capability Maturity Model

for Software V2, draft C

Comparing Model Representations

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. . .for an established  set of process areas across an organization

Staged Representation

• The staged representation is the approach used in  the Software CMM. It is an approach that uses 

Organizational Maturity

• Process area capability and organizational maturity are similar concepts

• The difference between them is that process area capability deals with a set of processes 

• Selecting a single representation approach became 

“too hard”

• A compromise was made to initially support two  representations of the model with equivalent 

content

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Two Representations

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    PI, VER, VAL Project Management

    PP, PMC, SAM     IPM, RSKM, QPM Process Management     OPF, OPD, OT,     OPP, OID

Process Management     PAs

    ­  Goals     ­  Practices

Support

    CM, PPQA, MA,      CAR, DAR

Appendixes

CMMI­SE/SW

Staged

Overview     Introduction     Structure of the Model     Model Terminology     Capability Levels and Generic Model Components     Understanding the Model

    Using the Model

CMMI­SE/SW Continuous

CMMI Model Structure

• Maturity Levels (staged representation) or Capability Levels (continuous 

representation)

• Process Areas

• Goals – Generic and Specific

• Practices – Generic and Specific

• The CMMI product suite is at the forefront 

of process improvement because it provide the latest best practices for product and 

service development and maintenance

• The CMMI models improve the best 

practices of previous models in many 

important ways

customer expectations

Benefits of CMMI ­ 2

– Incorporate lessons learned from additional 

areas of best practices (e.g.,  measurement ,  risk 

– Implement more robust high­maturity practices – Address additional organizational functions 

critical to their products and services

– More fully comply with relevant ISO standards

– Means to emphasize the alignment of the process  improvement objectives with organization business  objectives

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• The PSP is a defined and measured 

software process designed to be used by an individual software engineer

• The PSP was developed by Watts 

Humphrey

• Its intended use is to guide the planning and development of software modules or small programs, but it is adaptable to other 

personal tasks 63

• Like the SEI Capability Maturity Model for Software, the PSP is based on process 

PSP in a Nutshell ­ 1

• Baselining your existing personal software process

• Conducting meaningful design and code reviews

• Performing software quality management

PSP in a Nutshell ­ 3

• Perform software design in a more formal fashion

• Verifying the design, using methods using methods such as object state machines, 

program tracing, etc

• Scaling up the PSP to larger problems

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