WHAT IS A SOFTWARE PROCESS

For an industrial product with more than a minimal complexity the only reasonable way to ensure its quality is to guarantee that it is produ ced via a quality process. Industrial maturity demonstrates itself in the ability to separate the product from its development process, that is separating the WHAT from the HOW. This separation allows to analyz e and certify (!) the development process. Especially for software dev elopment the need for certified development processes (ISO 9000, ISO 1 2207) is pressing. In this presentation we explore some of the basic c oncepts underlying the notion of a software process and some of their implications.