Process patterns can be defined as the set of activities, actions, work tasks or work products and similar related behaviour followed in a software development life cycle.
Process patterns can be more easily understood by dividing it into terms, Process which means the steps followed to achieve a task and patterns which means the recurrence or same basic features during the lifecycle of a process. Thus in a more universal term process patterns are common or general solution for a complexity.
Typical Examples are:
1. Customer communication (a process activity).
2. Analysis (an action).
3. Requirements gathering (a process task).
4. Reviewing a work product (a process task).
5. Design model (a work product).
Process Patterns can be best seen in software design cycle which involves the common stages of development. For example, a generic software design life cycles has following steps:
1. Communication.
2. Planning.
3. Modeling which involves requirement gathering, analysis and design from business perspective.
4. Development which involves code generation and testing.
5. Deployment includes the code deployment and testing in the production environment.
Famous quotes containing the words process and/or patterns:
“Science is a dynamic undertaking directed to lowering the degree of the empiricism involved in solving problems; or, if you prefer, science is a process of fabricating a web of interconnected concepts and conceptual schemes arising from experiments and observations and fruitful of further experiments and observations.”
—James Conant (1893–1978)
“Persons grouped around a fire or candle for warmth or light are less able to pursue independent thoughts, or even tasks, than people supplied with electric light. In the same way, the social and educational patterns latent in automation are those of self- employment and artistic autonomy.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)