SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

UNIT-2

Syllabus:-Software Process:Process and project,

software development process models: Waterfall
model, prototyping, iterative development,
Rational unified process, extreme programming and
agile process.
1. Process and Project

Software process – is a sequence of activities to be performed to make a

software product.

 Several process models have been developed so far for the efficient

development of software that meets the user requirements.

Software process

Helps development of software in a systematic and disciplined manner.

 Helps common understanding of activities among the software

developers.

Software project – is one instance of the software process.

1.2 Component Software Processes

As defined above, software process is a sequence of steps executed to

develop a software product
 Several component processes exists in a software process. The
relationship between the major component processes is shown below as
a hierarchy;
At the bottom, we have Development Process and Project Management
process.
 The development process specifies all the engineering activities (analysis,
design, coding, testing and maintenance) that need to be performed to
develop a software product, whereas the management process specifies
how to plan and control these activities so that cost, schedule, quality, and
other objectives are met.
 During the project, many products are produced which are typically
composed of many items
For eg, the final source code may be composed of many source files.
 These items keep evolving as the project proceeds, creating many
versions on the way.
 So, it is the responsibility of software configuration management process
to handle these different versions.
These three component processes viz. development process, project
management process, software configuration management process comes
under product engineering process, as their main objective is to produce
the desired product.
 The basic objective of the process management process is to improve
the software process. By improvement, we mean that the capability of the
process to produce quality goods at low cost is improved.
2 Software Development Process Models

Software development process defines all the activities undertaken

during product development and establishes a precedence ordering among

the different activities.

 The development team must identify a suitable process model and

then adhere to it.

 The primary advantage of adhering to a life cycle model is that it helps

development of software in a systematic and disciplined manner.

 Due to the importance of the development process, various models

have been proposed.

2.1 Waterfall Model

The simplest process model is the waterfall model, which states that

the phases are organized in a linear order.

 Though the classical waterfall model is elegant and intuitively

obvious, it is not a practical model in the sense that it cannot be used in

actual software development projects.

But all other life cycle models are essentially derived from the

classical waterfall model. So, in order to be able to appreciate other life

cycle models it is necessary to learn the classical waterfall model.

Classical waterfall model divides the life cycle into the following

phases as shown in the following figure.

Feasibility Study

The main aim of feasibility study is to determine whether it would be

financially and technically feasible to develop the product.
Classical Waterfall Model

At first project managers or team leaders try to have a rough

understanding of what is required to be done by visiting the client side. They
study different input data to the system and output data to be produced by
the system. They study what kind of processing is needed to be done on
these data and they look at the various constraints on the behavior of the
system.
 After they have an overall understanding of the problem they investigate
different Possible solutions. Then they examine each of these solutions in
terms of what kind of resources required, what would be the cost of
development and what would be the development time for each solution.
 Based on this analysis they pick the best solution and determine
whether the solution is feasible financially and technically. They check
whether the customer budget would meet the cost of the product and
whether they have sufficient technical expertise in the area of development.
The following is an example of a feasibility study undertaken by an
organization. It is intended to give you a feel of the activities and issues
involved in the feasibility study phase of a typical software project.
Case Study

A mining company named Galaxy Mining Company Ltd. (GMC) has

mines located at various places in India. It has about 50 different mine
sites spread across eight states. The company employs a large number of
mines at each mine site. Mining being a risky profession, the company
intends to operate a special provident fund, which would exist in
addition to the standard provident fund that the miners already enjoy.
The main objective of having the special provident fund (SPF) would be
quickly distribute some compensation before the standard provident
amount is paid. According to this scheme, each mine site would deduct
SPF installments from each miner every month and deposit the same with
the CSPFC (Central Special Provident Fund Commissioner).
The CSPFC will maintain all details regarding the SPF installments
collected from the miners. GMC employed a reputed software vendor
Adventure Software Inc. to undertake the task of developing the software
for automating the maintenance of SPF records of all employees. GMC
realized that besides saving manpower on bookkeeping work, the software
would help in speedy settlement of claim cases. GMC indicated that
the amount it can afford for this software to be developed and installed is
Rs. 50 millions.
Adventure Software Inc. deputed their project manager to carry out the
feasibility study. The project manager discussed the matter with the top
managers of GMC to get an overview of the project. He also discussed the
issues involved with the several field PF officers at various mine sites to
determine the exact details of the project. The project manager identified
two broad approaches to solve the problem. One was to have a central
database which could be accessed and updated via a satellite connection
to various mine sites. The other approach was to have local databases at
each mine site and to update the central database periodically through a
dial-up connection. These periodic updates could be done on a daily or
hourly basis depending on the delay acceptable to GMC in invoking
various functions of the software. The project manager found that the
second approach was very affordable and more fault-tolerant as the local
mine sites could still operate even when the communication link to the
central database temporarily failed. The project manager quickly
analyzed the database functionalities required, the user-interface issues,
and the software handling communication with the mine sites. He arrived
at a cost to develop from the analysis. He found that the solution
involving maintenance of local databases at the mine sites and periodic
updating of a central database was financially and technically feasible.
The project manager discussed his solution with the GMC management
and found that the solution was acceptable to them as well.
Requirements Analysis and Specification

The aim of the requirements analysis and specification phase is to

understand the exact requirements of the customer and to document them
properly. This phase consists of two distinct activities, namely
 Requirements gathering and analysis, and
 Requirements specification
 The goal of the requirements gathering activity is to collect all relevant
information from the customer regarding the product to be developed. This
is done to clearly understand the customer requirements so that
incompleteness and inconsistencies are removed.
 The requirements analysis activity is begun by collecting all relevant
data regarding the product to be developed from the users of the product
and from the customer through interviews and discussions.
For example, to perform the requirements analysis of a business
accounting software required by an organization, the analyst might
interview all the accountants of the organization to ascertain their
requirements.
 The data collected from such a group of users usually contain several
contradictions and ambiguities, since each user typically has only a partial
and incomplete view of the system.
 Therefore it is necessary to identify all ambiguities and contradictions in
the requirements and resolve them through further discussions with the
customer.
 After all ambiguities, inconsistencies, and incompleteness have been
resolved and all the requirements properly understood, the requirements
specification activity can start. During this activity, the user requirements
are systematically organized into a Software Requirements Specification
(SRS) document.
The important components of this document are functional
requirements, the non-functional requirements, and the goals of
implementation.

Design

The goal of the design phase is to transform the requirements specified

in the SRS document into a structure that is suitable for implementation
in some programming language.
 In technical terms, during the design phase the software architecture
is derived from the SRS document.
Two distinctly different approaches are available:
1. Traditional design approach
2. Object-oriented design approach.
Traditional design approach - Traditional design consists of two different
activities; first a structured analysis of the requirements specification is
carried out where the detailed structure of the problem is examined. This is
followed by a structured design activity. During structured design, the
results of structured analysis are transformed into the software design.

Object-oriented design approach - In this technique, various objects

that occur in the problem domain and the solution domain are first
identified, and the different relationships that exist among these objects
are identified. The object structure is further refined to obtain the
detailed design.
Coding and Unit Testing

The purpose of the coding and unit testing phase (sometimes called the
implementation phase) of software development is to translate the
software design into source code. Each component of the design is
implemented as a program module. The end-product of this phase is a set
of program modules that have been individually tested.
 During this phase, each module is unit tested to determine the correct
working of all the individual modules. It involves testing each module in
isolation as this is the most efficient way to debug the errors identified at
this stage.
Integration and System Testing

Integration of different modules is undertaken once they have been coded

and unit tested.
During the integration and system testing phase, the modules are
integrated in a planned manner.
The different modules making up a software product are almost never
integrated in one shot. Integration is normally carried out incrementally
over a number of steps.
During each integration step, the partially integrated system is tested
and a set of previously planned modules are added to it.
Finally, when all the modules have been successfully integrated and
tested, system testing is carried out.
The goal of system testing is to ensure that the developed system
conforms to its requirements laid out in the SRS document. System testing
usually consists of three different kinds of testing activities:
α – testing: It is the system testing performed by the development
team.
β – testing: It is the system testing performed by a friendly set of
customers.
Acceptance testing: It is the system testing performed by the
customer himself after the product delivery to determine whether to
accept or reject the delivered product.
 System testing is normally carried out in a planned manner according
to the system test plan document. The system test plan identifies all
testing-related activities that must be performed, specifies the schedule
of testing, and allocates resources. It also lists all the test cases and
the expected outputs for each test case.
 Maintenance

Maintenance of a typical software product requires much more than the

effort necessary to develop the product itself.
 Many studies carried out in the past confirm this and indicate that the
relative effort of development of a typical software product to its
maintenance effort is roughly in the 40:60 ratio.
 Maintenance involves performing any one or more of the following three
kinds of activities:
Corrective maintenance - Correcting errors that were not discovered
during the product development phase.
Perfective maintenance - Improving the implementation of the system,
and enhancing the functionalities of the system according to the customer’s
requirements.
Adaptive maintenance - Porting the software to work in a new
environment.
For eg, porting may be required to get the software to work on a new
computer platform or with a new operating system.
Limitations of Waterfall Model

The waterfall model, although widely used, has some strong limitations.
Some of the key limitations are:
1. It assumes that the requirements of a system can be frozen (i.e.,
baselined) before the design begins. This is possible for small systems.
But for large systems, determining the requirements is difficult as the
user does not even know the requirements.
2. Freezing the requirements usually requires choosing the hardware. A
large project might take few years to complete. If the hardware is selected
early, then due to the speed at which hardware technology is changing, it
is likely that the final software will use a hardware that becomes obsolete.
This is clearly not desirable for such expensive software systems.
3. It follows the “big bang” approach—the entire software is delivered in one
shot at the end. This entails heavy risks, as the user does not know until
the end what they are getting. Furthermore, if the project runs out of
money in the middle, then there will be no software. That is, it has the “all
or nothing” value proposition.
4. It encourages “requirements bloating”. Since all requirements must be
specified at the start, it encourages the users and other stakeholders to add
unnecessary requirements (which they think that they are needed but, may
not be used finally).
5. It is a document-driven process that requires formal documents at the
end of each phase.
When to use the Waterfall Model?
Requirements are well known and stable
Technology is understood
Development team have experience with similar projects
For small projects
2.2 Prototyping

The goal of a prototyping-based development process is to counter the

first limitation of the waterfall model.
 The basic idea here is that instead of freezing the requirements before
any design or coding can proceed, a throwaway prototype is built to help
understand the requirements.
 A prototype is a toy implementation of the system. It usually exhibits
limited functional capabilities.
This prototype is developed based on the currently known
requirements. Development of the prototype obviously undergoes design,
coding, and testing, but each of these phases is done more informally.
 By using this prototype, the client can get an actual feel of the system,
which can enable the client to better understand the requirements of the
desired system. This results in more stable requirements.
 The process model of the prototyping approach is shown below.

The development of the prototype proceeds as follows; with currently

known requirements, a prototype of the system is developed. The prototype is
then presented to the clients/users. Based on the feedback given by the
clients/users, the prototype is modified to incorporate the suggested
changes. This process is continued until the clients/users are satisfied with
the prototype.
Once the prototype is accepted, it means that all the requirements of the
system have obtained. After this, the actual design, coding, and testing
phases are carried out to develop the software.

Advantages

Provides a working model to the user early in the process, so, it increases
user's confidence.
The developer gains experience and insight by developing a prototype
that results better implementation of requirements.
 The prototyping model serves to clarify requirements which are not
clear; hence, it reduces ambiguity and improves communication between
the developers and users.
 There is a great involvement of users in software development. Hence,
the requirements of the users are met to the greatest extent.
 Helps in reducing risks associated with the software.
Dis-Advantages

If the user is not satisfied by the developed prototype, then a new
prototype is developed. This process goes on until a perfect prototype is
developed. Thus, this model is time consuming and expensive.
 The developer loses focus of the real purpose of prototype and hence, may
compromise with the quality of the software.
For eg, Developers may use some inefficient algorithms or inappropriate
programming languages while developing the prototype.
 Prototyping can lead to false expectations.
For eg, a situation may be created where the user believes that the
development of the system is finished when it is not.
Where to Use Prototype Model?

Prototyping is an attractive idea for complicated and large systems for

which there is no manual process or existing system to help determine the
requirements.
 This might be needed for novel systems.
2.3 Iterative Development

The Iterative Development Process Model counters the third and fourth
limitations of the waterfall model and tries to combine the benefits of
both prototyping and the waterfall model.
 The basic idea is that the software should be developed in increments,
each increment adding some functionality to the system until the full
system is implemented.
There are two approaches in iterative model.
The first approach called the iterative enhancement model works as
follows;
 A simple initial implementation is done for a subset of requirements that
are assumed to be important for the customer.
 A project control list is created that contains, in order, all the tasks
that must be performed to obtain the final implementation.
Each step consists of removing the next task from the list, designing the
implementation for the selected task, coding and testing the
implementation, and performing an analysis of the partial system obtained.
These three phases are called the design phase, implementation phase,
and analysis phase.
The process is iterated until the project control list is empty, at which
time the final implementation of the system will be available. The iterative
enhancement model is shown below.
Iterative Enhancement Model

The second approach for iterative development is to do the requirements

and the architecture design in a standard waterfall or prototyping approach,
but deliver the software iteratively.
 At each iteration which requirements will be implemented in this release
is decided, and then the design is enhanced and code is developed to
implement the requirements. The iteration ends with delivery of a working
software system.
 This process is repeated until the final system is released.
Selection of requirements for an iteration is done primarily based on the
value the requirement provides to the end users. This approach is shown
below.
Fig: Iterative delivery approach
Advantages

In today’s world clients do not want to invest too much money without
seeing returns. The iterative model permits this after each iteration some
working software is delivered.
 It reduces the rework.
 It has no all-or-nothing risk.
 New requirements can be added easily.

Dis-Advantages

Needs good planning and design.

 Becomes invalid when there is time constraint on the project
schedule.
2.4 Rational Unified Process

Rational Unified Process (RUP) is another iterative process model that was
designed by Rational Software, now part of IBM.
 It was primarily designed for object-oriented development.
 In this, software development is divided into cycles where each cycle
consists of four phases;
 Inception phase
 Elaboration phase
 Construction phase
 Transition phase
Inception Phase

Inception phase is first phase of the process

The objectives of the inception phase are;
1. Establishing the project’s software scope and boundary conditions
including a clear understanding of what is and is not intended in the
product
2. Illustrating the critical use cases of the system.
3. Demonstrating at least one candidate architecture.
4. Estimating the cost and schedule for the entire project.
5. Estimating the potential risk
Elaboration Phase

Elaboration is the second phase of the process

The objectives of the Elaboration phase are;
1. Baselining the architecture.
2. Baselining the vision.
3. Baselining a plan for the construction phase.
4. Demonstrating that the architecture will support the vision at a
reasonable cost in a reasonable time.
Construction Phase

Construction is the third phase of the process which involves the

construction of the software system.
 The objectives of the Construction phase are;
1. Minimizing the development costs by optimizing the resources
and avoiding the unnecessary scrap and rework.
2. Achieving adequate quality.
3. Achieving useful versions (alpha, beta and other test releases).
Transition Phase

Transition is the fourth phase of the process which involves the

deployment of the software system to the user community.
 The objectives of the Transition phase are;
1. Beta testing to validate the new system against user expectations.
2. Installing the software at the client sites.
3. Conversion of operational databases.
4. Training of users and maintainers
The RUP model is shown below.
2.5 Extreme Programming and Agile Process

To overcome the shortcomings of the waterfall model of, Agile process
model was proposed in mid 1990s.
 The agile model was primarily designed to help projects to adapt to
change requests.
 Agile approaches are based on some common principles, some of
which are;
Working software is the key measure of progress in a project.
 Software should be developed and delivered rapidly in small
increments.
 Even late changes in the requirements should be entertained.
 Face-to-face communication is preferred over documentation.
 Continuous feedback and involvement of customer is necessary for
developing good-quality software.
Simple design which evolves and improves with time is a better approach
than doing an elaborate design for handling all possible scenarios.
 The delivery dates are decided by empowered teams of talented
individuals.
 Some popular agile methodologies are XP (Extreme Programming),Scrum,
Unified Process, Crystal, DSDM (Dynamic System Development Method) and
Lean.
 Extreme Programming (XP) is an agile software development framework
that aims to produce higher quality software, and higher quality of life for the
development team. 
Extreme programming (XP)

An extreme programming project starts with user stories.

User stories are the short descriptions of the requirements.
They are different from traditional requirements specification where
each requirement is specified in greater detail.
 For example, the following figure shows user stories.
The development team estimates how long it will take to implement a user
story. Generally, implementation of a user story takes one to four weeks.
 Using these estimates and the stories, release planning is done which
defines which stories are to be built in which system release, and the dates
of these releases.
 Usually, small releases are encouraged and each release is done in some
iterations.
Acceptance tests are performed to test the software before the release.
The overall process of extreme programming is shown below.
As shown in the above figure, development is done in iterations by

considering the user stories one by one.

An iteration starts with iteration planning in which the stories to be

implemented in this iteration are selected.

At a time, only one user story is planned, developed and tested using

acceptance testing.

An iteration may not add significant functionality but, still a new

release is made at the end of each iteration.

After some iterations, the entire software is released.

Advantages

Customer satisfaction by rapid, continuous delivery of useful software.

 Customers, developers and testers constantly interact with each other.

 Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months).

 Facilitates face-to-face conversation

 Provides close and daily cooperation between business people and

developers.

Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design.

 Regular adaptation to changing circumstances.

 Even late changes in requirements are welcomed.

Dis-Advantages

Can be misinterpreted…
Difficult to get external review.
When project is complete, and team disperses, maintenance becomes
difficult.

Where to use Agile Process Model

XP, and other agile methods, are suitable for situations where the
volume and pace of requirements change is high, and where requirement
risks are considerable.
 It works well when the customer is willing to involve heavily during
the entire development, working as a team member.
 Assignment-Cum-Tutorial Questions

1. Which of the following is a characteristic of Agile development? [ ]

a) Shared code ownership
b) Implement the simplest solution to meet today's problem
c) Continual feedback from customer
d) test-driven development
e) All of the above
2. In waterfall model, output of one phase is input to next phase. [ ]
a) True b) False
3. If requirements are easily understandable and defined then which model
is best suited? [ ]
a) Waterfall Model
b) Iterative Development Model
c) Prototyping
d) Extreme Programming
4) Which of the following are advantages of iterative model? [ ]
a) Early revenue generation
b) Simpler to manage
c) Divided workload
d) Early feedback
e) All the above
5) Which phase of the RUP is used to establish a business case for the
system [ ]
a) Transition
b) Elaboration
c) Construction
d) Inception
6) In XP Increments are delivered to customers every _______ weeks. [ ]
a) One b) Two c) Three d) Four
7. In a college, students are asked to develop a software. Which model
would be Preferable? [ ]
a) Waterfall model
b) Spiral model
c) Agile model
d) Code and fix model
8. Which of the following life cycle model can be chosen if the development
team has less experience on similar projects? [ ]
a) Spiral
b) Waterfall
c) Prototyping
d) Iterative Enhancement Model
9. Which four framework activities are found in the Extreme
Programming(XP)? [ ]
a) analysis, design, coding, testing
b) planning, analysis, design, coding
c) planning, design, coding, testing
d) planning, analysis, coding, testing
10. An iterative process of system development in which requirements are
converted to a working system that is continually revised through close
work between an analyst and user is called______ [ ]
a) Waterfall modeling
b) Iterative modeling
c) Spiral modeling
d) None of these above
11. A company is developing an advance version of their current software
available in the market, what model approach would they prefer ? [ ]
a) RAD
b) Iterative Enhancement
c) Both a) & b)
d) Spiral
12. Which one of the following statements most accurately identifies the
stakeholders in a software development project? [ ]
a) A stakeholder of the organization developing the software
b) Anyone who is interested in the software
c) Anyone who is a source of requirements for the software
d) Anyone who might be affected by the software