EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES THAT SUPPORT A SOFTWARE PROCESS LIFE-CYCLE

The goal of developing quality software can be achieved by focusing on the improvement of both product quality and process quality. While th e traditional focus has been on product quality, there is an increased awareness of the benefits of improving the quality of the processes u sed to develop and support those products. These processes are key ele ments in understanding and improving the practice of software engineer ing. In this paper, existing objectives for the development and applic ation of models of software processes are restated, and current resear ch sponsored by the IBM Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS) is discussed as it applies to furthering each of the objectives. A framework is al so presented that relates the research work to the various sectors of a software process life cycle. The on-going research involves four uni versities, CAS, and collaboration with IBM Toronto Laboratory develope rs.