Software Process Modeling: The Triad Approach

Abstract

The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) has undertaken a project that will attempt to capture, through models, the software engineering process as currently practiced in some organizations. This paper will present the Triad Approach to process model development — a philosophical perspective on modeling. We are convinced that for models of organizational processes to be most useful, it is necessary to go beyond simply describing a process. In particular, we believe that process models should support the engineering of processes, i.e., should facilitate (1) predictions of the impacts on manpower requirements, time-to-completion, and other measures, resulting from proposed changes to the process, and (2) analyses of the process, using the model, for completeness, correctness, and consistency. The Triad Approach provides a framework for characterization of processes and for their testing and validation. This paper presents the modeling philosophy being developed on the SEI project and discusses the need for automated tools to support modeling.