Making Use of Your Defined Processes to Support Project Planning and Product Quality (Software Technology for Adaptable, Reliable Systems (STARS) Program).

Abstract : The STARS program was instituted to develop technology to support the megaprogramming of software systems, or systems in which software is a part. Developing software using the megaprogramming approach involves following a defined process to develop software, using the concepts of architecture-based and component reuse. STARS is currently in its technology demonstration phase, where the three STARS prime contractors are each paired with a military service team to use STARS megaprogramming concepts to develop and field a software system. Experiences by all three STARS contractors, as well as experience on all three STARS demonstration projects, have shown that defining enactable (or executable) processes is a time-consuming activity. Further, organizations are not taking full advantage of this investment from the standpoints of project and product-quality planning. The purpose of this paper is to describe how process definitions can be leveraged to support software project planning and project execution through process-driven software development.