An integrated project management life cycle supporting system safety

Abstract

System failures in safety-critical domains can lead to harmful consequences for humans, the environment and for the system itself. The field of 'system safety' provides relief and aims at identifying possible risks already during the project planning phase of the system development. This requires modern project management support. The realisation of innovative ideas in software often increases the complexity and increasingly leads to dangerous system states or even system failures that put the safety of the system at risk. This paper addresses the development of an integrated project management approach for software development projects in safety-related domains. The core elements are project management, the process maturity model SPICE and system safety in general based on IEC 61508. The project management process sets the framework. The development life cycle and the safety life cycle are integrated into this process model. The result is an integrated project management life cycle for safety-related software development projects. This integrated project management life cycle offers a generic approach on a high level of abstraction in order to cover a broad range of applications. It gives project managers and furthermore the whole project team the opportunity to influence quality and system safety in a preventative manner. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2010.