Optimizing Software Product Integrity through Life-Cycle Process Integration

Managed and optimized – these are the names for the levels 4 and 5 of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) respectively. With that the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) pays tribute to the fact that, after the process has been defined, higher process maturity, and with that higher product maturity, can only be achieved by improving and optimizing the life-cycle process itself. In the last three years, we had had the opportunity to observe more than 50 software development teams in planning, specifying and building library related, real-world applications. This environment provided us with a unique way of introducing, validating and improving the life cycle process with new principles such as the WinWin approach to software development. This paper summarizes the lessons we have learned in our ongoing endeavor to integrate the WinWin lifecycle process. In doing so, we will not only describe what techniques have proven to be useful in getting the developer’s task done but the reader will also get some insight on how to tackle process improvement itself. As more and more companies are reaching CMM levels two or higher this task, of managing and optimizing the process, becomes increasingly important.