Duplicate instances of elements of a software process model

Abstract

At the end of any software project one could, at least in theory, draw a data flow diagram of all the activities performed, together with the respective inputs and outputs. We could consider such a description as a “trace” of the software project’s history. To arrive at a Software Process Model, one has to abstract from the individual processes (“traces”) to derive a generally applicable basic framework. In this paper we will adopt the terminology of ADPS [IBM_871 where the term “activity type” is used for activity descriptions in the model and “activity” for one instance of an activity type. The term “work item” is used for both inputs and results and “work item type” for the descriptions of work items in the model.