3.3 Team Software ProcessSM

3.3 Team Software Process ^SM

The Team Software Process ^SM is a project, quality, and life cycle management method for large groups of software engineers . The Team Software Process ^SM is a set of activities to form teams , perform project and quality management, and develop software. It extends the project and quality management techniques of the Personal Software Process ^SM . This is done for teams of 3 to 150 software engineers.

The goals of the Team Software Process ^SM are to show managers and engineers how to build self-directed teams. It also teaches them to plan and manage their work, coach and motivate their teams, and sustain peak performance. Accelerated SPI and high-maturity behavior are the ultimate goals.

The Team Software Process ^SM consists of well-defined roles, a launch process, and statistical size , cost, and quality estimating. Earned value management, risk management, and integrated product teaming are included. There are also processes for development, maintenance, software inspections, and cyclical development. It is important to note that the Team Software Process ^SM is a rapidly evolving and constantly changing family of life cycles. It has many phases, processes, activities, scripts, forms, logs, and techniques. There were over 12 significant variations of the Team Software Process ^SM released in its first four years of existence. Figure 3 illustrates the Team Software Process ^SM .

Figure 3: Team Software Process ^SM Phases

The Team Software Process ^SM consists of six major stages, phases, or scripts. The six major phase scripts are team launch, requirements, high-level design, implementation, release test, and postmortem. There are other significant scripts, processes, and activities as well that deserve mention. They include maintenance, unit test, inspection, and customer status meetings.

The team launch script is a distinctive element of the Team Software Process ^SM . It is a 10-step process that embodies team building, team integrating, and disciplined project management. The steps consist of establishing product and business goals, assigning roles, and defining team goals The next steps are produce a development strategy, build top-down and next-phase plans, and develop quality plans. Building bottom-up and balanced plans, conducting a risk assessment, and preparing management briefings and launch reports are next . The last steps are to hold management reviews and conduct a postmortem process to round out the team launch script.

The Team Software Process ^SM has many proven benefits. The benefits are improved size estimation, effort estimation, schedule estimation, defect density, and process yield. Further benefits of the Team Software Process ^SM are improved productivity, data accuracy, and process fidelity.