Using the STARS Reuse Process Framework

Historically, organizations have based their software development plans on methodology, technique, or tool selections made to implement an idealized project life cycle rather than on process building block selections. Indeed, software development has mostly been considered as one gigantic waterfall life cycle divided into major phases encompassing system conception to demise. In contrast, STARS is promoting the concept that there are multiple, valid modern software life cycle models appropriate for different organizational goals, strategies, and strengths. That is, STARS is generalizing the concept of life cycle model from a strategy for software system development to strategies for software product development, where product includes components, interface and protocol standards, architectures, domain models, application generators, and systems.

As opposed to modeling and planning a development strategy around major activities and tools, the reuse process framework supports the notion of composing a life cycle model from process building blocks. We believe the benefits of this approach to be:

• The ability to compose multiple, reuse-based life cycle models with different goals guided by the reuse process framework.
• Easier implementation and tailoring of life cycle models in support of individual domains, organizations, and engineers.
• Easier management, measurement, monitoring, and improvement, of life cycle model implementations and improvement in life cycle models.
• Identification of the similarities in appropriate methods, techniques, and tools supporting various life cycle models and processes.

These benefits accrue because process building blocks are well-defined, may have formal representations, have definite begin and end points, have definite start and stop criteria, span a shorter time duration than life cycle phases, and can be customized to available tools and environment support.