Software Process Model Blueprints

Explicitly defining a software process model is widely recognized as a good software engineering practice. However, having a defined process does not necessarily mean that this process is good, sound and/or useful. There have been several approaches for software process evaluation including testing, simulation and metrics; the first one requires software process enactment, i.e., an expensive, risky and long process, and the others require high expertise for correctly interpreting their meaning. In this paper we propose a visual approach for software process model evaluation based on three architectural view types, each one focusing on basic process elements: Role Blueprint, Task Blueprint and Work Product Blueprint. They enable visual evaluation of different perspectives of a software process, each being relevant for a particular stakeholder. We illustrate the proposed approach by applying it to the software process defined for a real world company that develops software for retail. We show how design errors were identified.