Problem Analysis and The Software Development Process
When problem analysis is incorporated into the software development process, the software development lifecycle starts with the problem analyst, who studies the situation and:
- creates a context diagram
- gathers a list of requirements and adds a requirements oval to the context diagram, creating a grand "all-in-one" problem diagram. (However, in many cases actually creating an all-in-one problem diagram may be impractical or unhelpful: there will be too many requirements references criss-crossing the diagram to make it very useful.)
- decomposes the all-in-one problem and problem diagram into simpler problems and simpler problem diagrams. These problems are projections, not subsets, of the all-in-one diagram.
- continues to decompose problems until each problem is simple enough that it can be seen to be an instance of a recognized problem frame. Each subproblem description includes a description of the specification interfaces for the machine to be built.
At this point, problem analysis — problem decomposition — is complete. The next step is to reverse the process and to build the desired software system though a process of solution composition.
The solution composition process is not yet well-understood, and is still very much a research topic. Extrapolating from hints in Software Requirements & Specifications, we can guess that the software development process would continue with the developers, who would:
- compose the multiple subproblem machine specifications into the specification for a single all-in-one machine: a specification for a software machine that satisfies all of the customer's requirements. This is a non-trivial activity — the composition process may very well raise composition problems that need to be solved.
- implement the all-in-one machine by going through the traditional code/test/deploy process.
Read more about this topic: Problem Frames Approach
Famous quotes containing the words problem, analysis, development and/or process:
“To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist—the problem is entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one’s vinegar.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The spider-mind acquires a faculty of memory, and, with it, a singular skill of analysis and synthesis, taking apart and putting together in different relations the meshes of its trap. Man had in the beginning no power of analysis or synthesis approaching that of the spider, or even of the honey-bee; but he had acute sensibility to the higher forces.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“On fields all drenched with blood he made his record in war, abstained from lawless violence when left on the plantation, and received his freedom in peace with moderation. But he holds in this Republic the position of an alien race among a people impatient of a rival. And in the eyes of some it seems that no valor redeems him, no social advancement nor individual development wipes off the ban which clings to him.”
—Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)
“Science and art are only too often a superior kind of dope, possessing this advantage over booze and morphia: that they can be indulged in with a good conscience and with the conviction that, in the process of indulging, one is leading the “higher life.””
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)