Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Software Process Innovation

Software process innovation can take the form of the development of new techniques, tools or methods for software development, as for example with extreme programming (XP) or SCRUM. It can concentrate on one phase of a more traditional development process, such as requirements elicitation - introducing more creative or imaginative techniques or tools. Software process innovations can be user-led , where expert users collaborate in the writing of software which meets their own needs (for example the Linux community). Process innovation can also focus on market analysis:where the demand for new software products lies. Common to many software process innovations is a focus on productive work, and the avoidance of thrashing – unfocused work which is neither productive nor generating new ideas. A more modern pre-occupation is with ‘flow’ , (Csíkszentmihályi’s description of a mental state characterized by high energy and focus) in a software team

The relationship between software process innovation and innovative software products is a complex one. At the moment there is no particular evidence that innovative software processes necessarily result in innovative software products. Some forms of innovative software products may be best developed using traditional methods .

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