Quality evaluation of software development process based on spiral modeling

Abstract

Various activities associated with software development are now being standardized in the software life cycle process (SLCP) which is under review at ISO. In developing telecommunications software by taking a conventional approach to software development, the structured design technique based on the waterfall model has so far been used in a software development process which is one of the elements composing SLCP. It is pointed out, however, that this conventional design technique has limitations with respect to the transference of technology and quality evaluation. On the other hand, new techniques of software development, such as object-oriented programming, prototyping, and spiral modeling are being introduced into computer software development. These new development techniques are expected to provide a solution to the transference of technology and other problems related to software development. In practice, however, introduction of these techniques to the development of telecommunications software is delayed because the scale of development is relatively large, a high level of real-time performance is sought, memory capacity is limited, and other reasons. With the emergence of a general-purpose telecommunications operating system (OS), upgrading of development environments, and decreasing cost of memory in recent years, it is now becoming possible to introduce these new techniques into the field of computer software development. Against this background, we applied a new development approach based on spiral modeling to the development of telecommunications software and compared it with the conventional development approach with respect to the productivity of software development, the qualify of software programs, and other factors. Although the man-hour control and some other technical problems were left unsolved in experimenting with this new development approach based on spiral modeling, we were able to obtain overall good results regarding productivity and the quality of software. © 1998 Scripta Technica.