Why EPF?

The software industry abounds with expert knowledge of how to develop software effectively. That knowledge may be centered on (1) technologies, such as J2EE, .NET, or various tool environments; (2) various specialty domains, such as how to build secure software, how to best leverage service-oriented architectures, or how to do distributed development; and (3) various industry-specific bodies of knowledge, such as how to deal with straight-through processing in the financial world, or how to build embedded systems for the auto industry.

The sources for all of these great ideas and knowledge include companies doing software development; the agile community; Software Process Improvement Networks (SPIN groups); product and technology companies; academia and software research groups, such as SEI Carnegie Mellon and USC Center for Software Engineering; and a variety of thought leaders, practice leaders, and companies capturing industry best practices into various knowledge bases, books, and processes.

Presently, most of these process assets have a number of limitations:

• Inadequate integration. Different media, notations, language, and terminology are used to express process assets, making integration of the process assets difficult to achieve.

• Redundancy or overlapping. Process assets are developed with limited collaboration among different groups, leading some groups to reinvent the wheel rather than add value to preexisting work. This results in redundant or partially overlapping assets.

• Poor communication. Process assets are developed without an infrastructure that allows for integration and customization to the specific needs of an organization or project and are delivered in a form that often is hard for the end user to understand and use. As a result, the knowledge captured in the asset is not effectively communicated.

Best practices are currently inadequately integrated, redundant, and poorly communicated.

The purpose of EPF is to address the above issues by facilitating cohesion and usefulness of process assets and best practices. EPF also aims to foster an environment for effective collaboration and innovation in software development by bringing together communities and having them express process assets using a standard format. EPF also supports the ability to express a diversity of views in how to develop software, since this diversity drives innovation. The goals of EPF are further discussed in the following section.