Chapter 3

Techniques of Planning,
Controlling and Automating
Software Process
 Chapter 3
Techniques of Planning, Controlling and Automating
Software Process - 15 Hrs.
1. Iterative Process Planning (Process Work Breakdown Structure,
Planning Guidelines, Cost and Schedule Estimations
Process, Iteration Planning Process)
2. Project Organization and Responsibilities
3. Process Automation – Tools and Environment
4. Project Control and Process Instrumentation
5. Process Customization
 3.1
Iterative Process Planning (Process Work Breakdown
Structure, Planning Guidelines, Cost and Schedule
Estimations Process, Iteration Planning Process)
 Iterative Process Planning
Work Breakdown Structures
• The development of a work breakdown structure is dependent
on the project management style, organizational culture, customer
preference, financial constraints and several other hard-to-define
parameters.
• A WBS is simply a hierarchy of elements that decomposes the
project plan into the discrete work tasks.

• A WBS provides the following information structure:

✓ A delineation of all significant work
✓ A clear task decomposition for assignment of responsibilities
✓ A framework for scheduling, budgeting, and expenditure tracking.
 Iterative Process Planning
Work Breakdown Structures

• The basic recommendation for the WBS is to organize the hierarchy as

follows:
✓ First-level WBS elements are the workflows (management,
environment, requirements, design, implementation, assessment,
and deployment).
✓Second-level WBS elements are defined for each phase of the life
cycle (inception, elaboration, construction, and transition).
✓ Third-level WBS elements are defined for the focus of activities
that produce the artifacts of each phase.
 Iterative Process Planning
Planning Guidelines

❖ Software projects span a broad range of application domains.

❖ It is valuable but risky to make specific planning recommendations
independent of project context.
❖ Project-independent planning advice is also risky.
❖ There is the risk that the guidelines maybe adopted blindly without
being adapted to specific project circumstances.
❖ Two simple planning guidelines should be considered when a project
plan is being initiated or assessed.
 Iterative Process Planning
Planning Guidelines
The first guideline, detailed in Table 1, prescribes a default allocation of costs
among the first-level WBS elements.
First Level WBS Element Default Budget
Management 10% Table 1: Web budgeting defaults

Environment 10%
Requirement 10%
Design 15%
Implementation 25%
Assessment 25%
Deployment 5%
Total 100%
 Iterative Process Planning
Planning Guidelines
The second guideline, detailed in Table 2, prescribes the allocation of effort
and schedule across the lifecycle phases.

Domain Inception Elaboration Construction Transition

Effort 5% 20% 65% 10%

Schedule 10% 30% 50% 10%

Table 2: Default distributions of effort and schedule by phase

 Iterative Process Planning
The Cost and Schedule Estimating Process

❖ Project plans need to be derived from two perspectives:

✓ The first is a forward-looking, top-down approach.
✓ The second perspective is a backward-looking, bottom-up approach.
❖ These two planning approaches should be used together, in balance,
throughout the life cycle of the project.
 Iterative Process Planning
The Cost and Schedule Estimating Process
Forward-looking:
1. The software project manager develops a characterization of the overall
size, process, environment, people, and quality required for the project
2. A macro-level estimate of the total effort and schedule is developed using
a software cost estimation model
3. The software project manager partitions the estimate for the effort into a
top-level WBS, also partitions the schedule into major milestone dates
and partitions the effort into a staffing profile
4. At this point, subproject managers are given the responsibility for
decomposing each of the WBS elements into lower levels using their top-
level allocation, staffing profile, and major milestone dates as constraints.
 Iterative Process Planning
The Cost and Schedule Estimating Process

Backward-looking:
1. The lowest level WBS elements are elaborated into detailed tasks,
for which budgets and schedules are estimated by the responsible WBS
element manager.
2. Estimates are combined and integrated into higher level
budgets and milestones.
3. Comparisons are made with the top-down budgets and schedule
milestones. Gross differences are assessed and adjustments are made
in order to converge on agreement between the top-down and the
bottom-up estimates.
 Iterative Process Planning
The Cost and Schedule Estimating Process

❖ During the engineering stage, the top-down perspective will dominate

because there is usually not enough depth of understanding nor stability
in the detailed task sequences to perform credible bottom-up planning.
❖ During the production stage, there should be enough precedent
experience and planning fidelity that the bottom-up planning perspective
will dominate.
❖ Top-down approach should be well tuned to the project-specific
parameters, so it should be used more as a global assessment technique.
❖ Figure 1 below illustrates this life-cycle planning balance.
 Iterative Process Planning
The Cost and Schedule Estimating Process

Figure 1 Planning balance throughout the life cycle

 Iterative Process Planning
The Iteration Planning Process
Engineering Stage Production Stage
Inception Elaboration Construction Transition

Feasibility iterations Architecture iterations Usable iterations Product releases

Engineering stage
Production stage
Planning emphasis:
Planning emphasis:
•Macro-level task estimation for production-stage
artifacts • Micro-level task estimation for
production-stage artifacts
•Micro-level task estimation for engineering artifacts
• Macro-level task estimation for
•Stakeholder concurrence
•Coarse-grained variance analysis of actual vs.
engineering artifacts
planned expenditures • Stakeholder concurrence
•Tuning the top-down project-independent • Fine-grained variance analysis of
planning guidelines into project-specific planning actual vs. planned expenditures
guidelines
 Iterative Process Planning
The Iteration Planning Process
• Planning is concerned with defining the actual sequence of intermediate results.
• An evolutionary build plan is important because there are always adjustments in build
content and schedule as early conjecture evolves into well-understood project
circumstances.
• Iteration is used to mean a complete synchronization across the project, with a well-
orchestrated global assessment of the entire project baseline.
• Inception iterations:
• The early prototyping activities integrate the foundation components of a candidate
architecture and provide an executable framework for elaborating the critical use
cases of the system.
• This framework includes existing components, commercial components, and custom
prototypes sufficient to demonstrate a candidate architecture and sufficient
requirements understanding to establish a credible business case, vision, and software
development plan.
 Iterative Process Planning
The Iteration Planning Process
• Elaboration iterations:
• These iterations result in architecture, including a complete framework and
infrastructure for execution.
• Upon completion of the architecture iteration, a few critical use cases should be
demonstrable:
• initializing the architecture,
• injecting a scenario to drive the worst-case data processing flow through the system
(for example, the peak transaction throughput or peak load scenario),
• injecting a scenario to drive the worst-case control flow through the system
(for example, orchestrating the fault-tolerance use cases).
• Construction iterations: Most projects require at least two major construction iterations:
an alpha release and a beta release.
• Transition iterations: Most projects use a single iteration to transition a beta release into
the final product.
 Iterative Process Planning
The Iteration Planning Process

• The general guideline is that most projects will use between four
and nine iterations.
• The typical project would have the following six-iteration profile:
✓ One iteration in inception: an architecture prototype
✓ Two iterations in elaboration: architecture prototype and
architecture baseline
✓ Two iterations in construction: alpha and beta releases
✓ One iteration in transition: product release
• A very large or unprecedented project with many stakeholders may
require additional inception iteration and two additional iterations
in construction, for a total of nine iterations.
3.2 Project Organization and Responsibilities
 Project Organizations and Responsibilities

• Organizations engaged in software Line-of-Business need to support

projects with the infrastructure necessary to use a common process.
• Project organizations need to allocate artifacts & responsibilities across
project team to ensure a balance of global (architecture) & local
(component) concerns.
• The organization must evolve with the WBS & Life cycle concerns.
• Software lines of business & product teams have different motivation.
• Software lines of business are motivated by return of investment (ROI),
new business discriminators, market diversification & profitability.
• Project teams are motivated by the cost, Schedule & quality of specific
deliverables
 Project Organizations and Responsibilities
Line-of-Business Organizations

• The main features of default organization are as follows:

• Responsibility for process definition & maintenance is specific to
a cohesive line of business.
• Responsibility for process automation is an organizational role &
is equal in importance to the process definition role.
• Organizational role may be fulfilled by a single individual or
several different teams.
 Project Organizations and Responsibilities
Line-of-Business Organizations
Default roles in a software line-of-business organizations

Organization
Manager
Software
Project Review
Engineering
Authority
Process Authority ● Process definition ● Project compliance
● Process improvement ● Periodic risk assessment

Software
Engineering
Infrastructure
Environment
Authority
● Projectadministration
● Process automation ● Engineering skill centers
● Professional development

Project A Project B Project N

Manager Manager Manager
 Project Organizations and Responsibilities
Line-of-Business Organizations
• Software Engineering Process Authority (SEPA)
• The SEPA facilities the exchange of information & process guidance
both to & from project practitioners
• This role is accountable to General Manager for maintaining a current
assessment of the organization’s process maturity & its plan for future
improvement
• Project Review Authority (PRA)
• The PRA is the single individual responsible for ensuring that a
software project complies with all organizational & business unit
software policies, practices & standards
• A software Project Manager is responsible for meeting the requirements
of a contract or some other project compliance standard
 Project Organizations and Responsibilities
Line-of-Business Organizations

• Software Engineering Environment Authority (SEEA)

• The SEEA is responsible for automating the organization’s process,
maintaining the organization’s standard environment, training
projects to use the environment & maintaining organization-wide
reusable assets.
• The SEEA role is necessary to achieve a significant ROI for common
process.
• Infrastructure
• An organization’s infrastructure provides human resources support,
project- independent research & development, & other capital
software engineering assets.
Project Organizations and Responsibilities
Project Organizations
 Project Organizations and Responsibilities
Project Organizations
• The main features of the default organization are as follows:
• The project management team is an active participant, responsible for
producing as well as managing.
• The architecture team is responsible for real artifacts and for the
integration of components, not just for staff functions.
• The development team owns the component construction and
maintenance activities.
• The assessment team is separate from development.
• Quality is everyone’s into all activities and checkpoints.
• Each team takes responsibility for a different quality perspective.
 Project Organizations and Responsibilities
Project Organizations
Software Management Team
Artifacts ● Systems Engineering Responsibilities
● Business case ● Financial Administration ● Resource commitments
● Vision ● Quality Assurance ● Personnel assignments
● Software development plan ● Plans, priorities,
● Work breakdown structure ● Stakeholder satisfaction
● Status assessments ● Scope definition
● Requirements set ● Risk management
● Project control
Life-Cycle Focus
Inception Elaboration Construction Transition

Elaboration phase planning Construction phase planning Transition phase planning Customer satisfaction
Team formulating Full staff recruitment Construction plan Contract closure
Contract base lining Risk resolution optimization Sales support
Architecture costs Product acceptance criteria Risk management Next-generation planning
Construction costs
 Project Organizations and Responsibilities
Project Organizations
Software Architecture Team
Artifacts Responsibilities
● Demonstrations
● Architecture description ● Requirements trade-offs
● Use-case modelers
● Requirements set ● Design modelers ● Design trade-offs
● Design set ● Performance analysts ● Component selection
● Release specifications ● Initial integration
● Technical risk solution

Life-Cycle Focus

Inception Elaboration Construction Transition

Architecture prototyping Architecture base lining Architecture maintenance Architecture maintenance
Make/buy trade-offs Primary scenario Multiple-component issue Multiple-component issue
Primary scenario definition demonstration resolution resolution
Architecture evaluation Make/buy trade-offs base Performance tuning Performance tuning
criteria definition lining Quality improvements Quality improvements
 Project Organizations and Responsibilities
Project Organizations
Software Development Team
Artifacts Responsibilities
● Component teams
● Design set ● Component design
● Implementation set ● Component implementation
● Deployment set ● Component stand-alone test
● Component maintenance
● Component documentation

Life-Cycle Focus

Inception Elaboration Construction Transition

Prototyping support Critical component design Component design Component maintenance

Make/buy trade-offs Critical component Component implementation Component documentation
implementation and test Component stand-alone test
Critical component base line Component maintenance
 Project Organizations and Responsibilities
Project Organizations
Software Assessment Team
Artifacts ● Release testing Responsibilities
● Deployment set ● Change management ● Project infrastructure
● SCO database ● Deployment ● Independent testing
● User manual ● Environment support ● Requirements verification
● Environment ● Metrics analysis
● Release specifications ● Configuration control
● Release descriptions ● Change management
● Deployment documents ● User deployment

Life-Cycle Focus

Inception Elaboration Construction Transition

Infrastructure planning Infrastructure base lining Infrastructure upgrades Infrastructure maintenance

Primary scenario prototyping Architecture release testing Release testing Release base lining
Change management Change management Change management
Initial user manual User manual base line Deployment to users
Requirements verification Requirements verification
Project Organizations and Responsibilities
Evolution of Organizations
 Project Organizations and Responsibilities
Evolution of Organizations
Inception: Elaboration:
Software management: 50% Software management: 10%
Software Architecture: 20% Software Architecture: 50%
Software development: 20% Software development: 20%
Software Assessment Software Assessment
(measurement/evaluation):10% (measurement/evaluation):20%

Construction: Transition:
Software management: 10% Software management: 10%
Software Architecture: 10% Software Architecture: 5%
Software development: 50% Software development: 35%
Software Assessment Software Assessment
(measurement/evaluation):30% (measurement/evaluation):50%
3.3 Process Automation – Tools and Environment
 Process Automation
• The environment must be the first-class artifact of the process.
• Process automation & change management is critical to an iterative process. If the change
is expensive then the development organization will resist it.
• Round-trip engineering & integrated environments promote change freedom & effective
evolution of technical artifacts.
• Metric automation is crucial to effective project control.
• External stakeholders need access to environment resources to improve interaction with
the development team & add value to the process.
• The three levels of process which requires a certain degree of process automation for the
corresponding process to be carried out efficiently.
➢ Metaprocess (Line of business): The automation support for this level is called an
infrastructure.
➢ Macroproces (project): The automation support for a project’s process is called an
environment.
➢ Microprocess (iteration): The automation support for generating artifacts is
generally called a tool.
 Process Automation
Tools: Automation Building blocks
Many tools are available to automate the software development process. Most of the core
software development tools map closely to one of the process workflows
 Process Automation
The Project Environment
• The project environment artifacts evolve through three discrete states:
1. Prototyping Environment.
2. Development Environment.
3. Maintenance Environment.

❖ The Prototype Environment includes an architecture test bed for prototyping project
architecture to evaluate trade-offs during inception & elaboration phase of the life cycle.

❖ The Development environment should include a full suite of development tools needed
to support various process workflows & round-trip engineering to the maximum extent
possible.

❖ The Maintenance Environment should typically coincide with the mature version of the
development.
 Process Automation
Round-Trip engineering

Round Trip Environment

• Tools must be integrated to maintain consistency & traceability.
• Round-Trip engineering is the term used to describe this key
requirement for environment that support iterative development.
• As the software industry moves into maintaining different information
sets for the engineering artifacts, more automation support is needed to
ensure efficient & error free transition of data from one artifacts to
another.
• Round-trip engineering is the environment support necessary to maintain
Consistency among the engineering artifacts.
 Process Automation
Round-Trip engineering
 Process Automation
Change Management
Change Management
• Change management must be automated & enforced to manage
multiple iterations & to enable change freedom.
• Change is the fundamental primitive of iterative Development.

a. Software Change Orders

• The atomic unit of software work that is authorized to create, modify or
obsolesce components within a configuration baseline is called a
software change orders ( SCO )
• The basic fields of the SCO are Title, description, metrics, resolution,
assessment & disposition
Process Automation
Change Management
 Process Automation
Change Management
b. Configuration Baseline
• A configuration baseline is a named collection of software components
&Supporting documentation that is subjected to change management & is
upgraded, maintained, tested, statuses & obsolesced a unit

• There are generally two classes of baselines:

✓ External Product Release
✓ Internal testing Release

• Three levels of baseline releases are required for most Systems

1.Major release (N)
2.Minor Release (M)
3.Interim (temporary) Release (X)
 Process Automation
Change Management
c. Configuration Baseline
• Major release represents a new generation of the product or project
• A minor release represents the same basic product but with enhanced features,
performance or quality.
• Major & Minor releases are intended to be external product releases that are
persistent & supported for a period of time.
• An interim release corresponds to a developmental configuration that is intended to
be transient.
• Once software is placed in a controlled baseline all changes are tracked such that a
distinction must be made for the cause of the change.
• Change categories are:
• Type 0: Critical Failures (must be fixed before release)
• Type 1: A bug or defect either does not impair (Harm) the usefulness of the
system or can be worked around
• Type 2: A change that is an enhancement rather than a response to a defect
• Type 3: A change that is necessitated by the update to the environment
• Type 4: Changes that are not accommodated by the other categories.
 Process Automation
Change Management
d. Configuration Control Board (CCB)
• A CCB is a team of people that functions as the decision authority on
the content of configuration baselines
• A CCB includes:
1.Software managers
2.Software Architecture managers
3.Software Development managers
4.Software Assessment managers
5.Other Stakeholders who are integral to the maintenance of the
controlled software delivery system?
 Process Automation
Infrastructure
• The organization infrastructure provides the organization’s capital assets including two
keyartifacts - Policy & Environment

1. Organization Policy:
❖ A Policy captures the standards for project software development processes
❖ The organization policy is usually packaged as a handbook that defines the life cycles & the
process primitives such as:
✓ Major milestones
✓ Intermediate Artifacts
✓ Engineering repositories
✓ Metrics
✓ Roles & Responsibilities
Process Automation
Infrastructure
 Process Automation
Infrastructure
2. Organization Environment
• The Environment that captures an inventory of tools which are building blocks from
which project environments can be configured efficiently & economically
• Stakeholder Environment
• Many large-scale projects include people in external organizations that represent other
stakeholders participating in the development process they might include:
✓ Procurement agency contract monitors
✓ End-user engineering support personnel
✓ Third party maintenance contractors
✓ Independent verification & validation contractors
✓ Representatives of regulatory agencies & others.
 Process Automation
Infrastructure
• These stakeholder representatives also need to access to development
resources so that they can contribute value to overall effort.
• These stakeholders will be access through on-line
• An on-line environment accessible by the external stakeholders allow them to
participate in the process
• Accept & use executable increments for the hands-on evaluation.
• Use the same on-line tools, data & reports that the development organization
uses to manage & monitor the project
• Avoid excessive travel, paper interchange delays, format translations, paper *
shipping costs & other overhead cost
Process Automation
Infrastructure
3.4 Project Control and Process Instrumentation
Project Control and Process Instrumentation
The Seven Core Metrics
Project Control and Process Instrumentation
The Seven Core Metrics
Figure:
Figure:
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Figure:
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Figure:
Figure:
3.5 Process Customization
 Tailoring the Process
Process Discriminants

The two primary dimensions of process variability

Higher technical complexity

Average software project
● Embedded, real-time,
● 5 to 10 people
distributed, fault-tolerant
● 10 to 12 months
● High-performance, portable
● 3 to 5 external interfaces
● Unprecedented, architecture
● Some unknowns, risks
re-engineering

Lower management complexity

Higher management complexity
● Smaller scale
● Large scale
● Informal
● Contractual
● Few stakeholders
● Many stakeholders
● “Products”
● “Projects”

Lower technical complexity

● Straightforward automation, single
thread
● Interactive performance, single
platform
● Many precedent systems,
application re-engineering
Figure:
 Tailoring the Process
Example: Small-Scale Project vs. Large-Scale Project

Differences in workflow priorities between small and large projects

Small Commercial Large Complex Project

Rank
Project
1 Design Management

2 Implementation Design

3 Deployment Requirements

4 Requirements Assessment

5 Assessments Environment

6 Management Implementation

7 Environment Deployment