IMPROQ’04 : Panel Presentation

1. IMPROQ’04 :Panel Presentation : Impact of Software Process on Quality

2. Understanding the impact of software process on quality depends upon understanding the nature of software development: that software development is software engineering (SE) that engineering is design-centric (in recent literature, the fact that engineers don’t build have been pointed out repeatedly) that the design materials in SE are concepts (see f. ex. Bratteteig’s ”SW design: working with symbolic material” in Designing Design Workshop, 2001, Oslo) that concepts and the possiblity to conceptualize anything – actually create what does not exist (a characteristic of design as opposed to science) – brings SE closer to design-centric disciplines like architecture, art, literature and dramaturgy Thus, the concept of quality is difficult to define in a formal and objective manner, and the process is highly creative : experimental and practice-oriented with unpredictable outcomes where changing views and methods/approaches/tools help (common practice in architecture etc – see Ina Wagner’s work on design processes in architecture) SW PROCESS & QUALITY :Nature of Software Engineering #1

3. Like architecture, art and literature SW engineering is one specific discipline but for many (practically all) other disciplines that cannot be mastered by SW engineers This makes extensive expertise in the target area or extensive studies necessary (as in literature, dramaturgy, architecture etc) SW PROCESS & QUALITY :Nature of Software Engineering #2 • What we characterize as requirements engineering is part of design, not prior to design!

4. If engineers don’t build, then what is coding, testing, deployment and other implementation-level activities? If SE can be compared to art and other desig-centric disciplines, then implementation in SE is crafting: it is part of expressing what is conceptualized and characterized. SW PROCESS & QUALITY :Nature of Software Engineering #3 • For the software engineer, implementation is experimentation (platform specific realization), and for the software crafter, it is implementation.

5. There are no disciplines where process quality does not impact product quality, and there are no disciplines where just the existence of (an arbitrary) process guarantees quality This implies that the process for quality SW needs to be of high quality Then we have the issue of defining what ”high quality process” is The capability to define ”high quality process” is very much dependent upon a good understandingof the nature of the discipline itself – in this case SE SW PROCESS & QUALITY :Their Relationship • STANCE: • One paradigm is one ”perspective”. The SE process requires multiple perspectives as in any creative process. Thus, just choosing OO vs. CB doesn’t help: paradigms that serve the tasks/pahses at hand need to be identified and used – also from a cognitive point of view • A creative process demands multiple styles. Thus, only choosing project style like agile vs. rigid is not sufficient either. Experimentation and crafting is necessarily agile: they are ”personal” activities. Team-work cannot be agile (except in pairwise work). • Finally, SE is is design-centric (creative) as its processes need to be... • Exercise: watch at least three architectural projects noting the details