(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security,Vol. 9, No. 5, May 2011
Enhancement of stakeholders participations inWater fall Process Model
(Step towards reducing the defects in software product)
Mehar Ullah Fasee Ullah Muhammad Saeed Shehzad
meharullah@yahoo.com faseekhan@gmail.com saeedshehzad@gmail.com
Department of Computer ScienceCity University of Science & Information Technology (CUSIT)Peshawar, Pakistan
Abstract
— In complete software development life cycle, defectscan be originated from any source such as from stakeholders, endusers, or in understanding the scope of project or product. Inwater fall process model, all activities are performing in sequenceand though it has its own drawbacks, which causes of differentdefects but one perspective of defects is the involvement of developer stakeholders in development process. The coordinationproblem between developer stakeholders of successive activitiescauses many problems such as improving defect ratios, managingthe work within deadline time, productivity, reliability andquality of software. Coordination and communication problemamong stakeholders is due to lack of communication power of stakeholders and proper way to understand his/her work tostakeholder of successive activity. To overcome this problem, wehave proposed a strategy which can be implemented by projectmanager of team or with mutual coordination of team members.
Key Words:Defects , stakeholders, Defects ratio, Coordination,Communication
I.
I
NTRODUCTION
Software development process comprises on set of activities which can be shaped or named according to definemethodologies and umbrella of these activities is considered as process model. Now-a-day, stakeholders are using number of process model and their demand can be seen with respect todifferent aspect such as delivery time for products, qualitylevel, maintainability, availability, complexity or agility.Among these process model, water fall is an old andtraditional model which can be followed by many developersto develop the customized software and where instant changein system are not acceptable. Water fall process model is alsorepresented as classic software life cycle [1] where softwareevolution proceeds in sequence of activities. Besides itsadvantages, water fall process model causes some problemsdue to its sequential approach, making the development process length and unable to accept the uncertain requirementsof a system [2]. Similarly, in waterfall process model planningis done during the early stages, so it causes many design flaws before the development process. But its planning and intensivedocumentation helps to maintain the product quality. For considering the full waterfall process model, developers canuse the set of activities such as system requirement, softwarerequirement, architectural design, detail design, coding, testingand maintenance [3, 4].In each stage of waterfall process model, documents arecreated to describe the objectives and requirements of that phase and at the end of each phase a review of project is heldfor continuation on next phase [5, 6, 7]. But if developer stakeholder of current stage is unable to communicateeffectively with developer stakeholder of next phase thennumber of factors arise which can impact the achieving of functional or non functional requirements, delay in delivery of product and its defect rate. Similarly, external influence of software development causes the risk factor which can leadfurther to cost, duration and quality of projects [8].In 1960, some software crises come in front of audienceduring development phase. Later on in 1993, an IEEE standarddefines several dimensions of defects that should be collected[9]. There are number of interrelated factors indocumentation, process management, development andactivities sequences which cause defects but most probablycommunication gap between stakeholders of successive phaseis considered as important source [10, 11].To overcome this problem, we have proposed a strategy to fillthe communication gap between stakeholders of twoconnective phases and reduce the defect rate.II.
P
ROPOSED
M
ETHODOLOGY
In water fall model, development of software is done byfollowing a set of activities in sequence and each activity is performed by one or more than one stakeholders. The
78http://sites.google.com/site/ijcsis/ISSN 1947-5500
(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security,Vol. 9, No. 5, May 2011
coordination problem between developer stakeholders of successive activities causes many problems such as improvingdefect ratios, managing the work within deadline time, productivity, reliability and quality of software. Coordinationand communication problem among stakeholders is due tolack of communication power of stakeholder and proper wayto understand the work of stakeholder of successive activity.To overcome this problem, a proposed strategy which can beimplemented by project manager of team or with mutualcoordination of team members. According to this proposedstrategy the work of each stakeholder should be documentedfor easy access and help to stakeholder(s) of next phase.Influence of proposed work over the activities of water fallmodel is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Influence of proposed strategy and activities list of Water fall Model
Figure 1 shows the list of activities and implementation of proposed methodology whose influence will be remain duringthe phase, but here it has shown only at the end of activity or phase. In proposed methodology, we considered the five roleswho worked together under supervision of a project manager.These roles are of project manager, system analyst, designer, programmer and tester. Each role will follow the rules whichare defined in methodology. But here in next section only therules and work of system analyst according to methodology isdefined.The first activity of waterfall model is the analysis or requirement specification and in this phase main role is of system analyst. Instead of his/her actual work, each analystwill must use the following sequence shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Steps for System Analyst in proposed methodology
Information about users, their requirements and some other information is shown in table 1.Table 1, show the information which is maintained bysystem analyst for precise communication with stakeholder(s)of next coming phase or activity. The first column of table 1shows the list of all linked and non-linked departments fromwhere requirements are collected. The second columnrepresents the list of users who are involved in operationsdirectly or indirectly. Third and forth columns represent themanagement level of users and their assign roles respectively.Moreover, fifth column show the list of requirements whichare gathered from different users of proposed system. Finally,last column represent the page number of feasibility reportwhere gathered requirements have been organized.III.
C
ONCLUSION AND
F
UTURE
W
ORK
In water fall process model, communication gap andunderstanding between developer stakeholders of successivestages causes of many defects and its effect on themaintenance period of product. Because, due to maintenance process extra efforts are needed to overcome the problems andreducing the defect rate. Due to proposed methodology in this paper, developer becomes able to convey their messages andenhance the understandability of his/her work to thestakeholder of next coming stage or phase. Here, author has presented the rules and task for system analyst only and thisthing has been defined for other type of developer stakeholders. Finally, author’s proposed strategy can beenhanced and precise after its implementation for customized projects and according to opinion of developer stakeholders.AnalysisDesignCodingTestingInfluenceof ProposedUnderstand scope of projectIdentify requirementsrelevant to stakeholdersIdentify list of actual andrelevant stakeholders
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Enhancement of stakeholders participations in Water fall Process Model (Step towards reducing the defects in software product)
In complete software development life cycle, defects can be originated from any source such as from stakeholders, end users, or in understanding the scope of project or product. In water fall process model, all activities are…
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