A project model for software development

Abstract

Uncertainty and dynamic changes in a software project cause iterations during development and the need for decision-making in planning and controlling a project. This paper presents a Software Project Review and Evaluation Model, SPREM, a superset of CPM/PERT which extends CPM/PERT's notation to four types of vertices (AA, AX, XA, and XX vertices) to express the non-deterministic and iterative behaviors of software engineering projects. Several behavioral properties of SPREM and analysis of them are discussed. For example, the enaction capability can be used to evaluate the possibility that a vertex will enact processes beforehand. Project managers can revise a SPREM graph to rescue dead vertices before project execution. Furthermore, enaction ordering allows project managers to calculate the dependency between processes to be enacted. This might help in computing important information such as critical paths among these processes.