Participants and Roles

• developing a software system requires the collaboration of many people with different backgrounds and interests:
  • the client orders and pays for the system
  • the developers construct the system
  • the project manager plans and budgets the project and coordinates the developers and the client
  • the end users are supported by the system
• we refer to all the persons involved in the project as participants
• we refer to a set of responsibilities in the project or the system as a role
• a role is associated with a set of tasks and is assigned to a participant, the same participant can fulfill multiple roles

Systems & models

• we use the term system as a collection of interconnected parts
• modeling is a way to deal with complexity by ignoring irrelevant details
• we use the term model to refer to any abstraction of the system
• a development project is itself a system that can be modeled
• the project schedule, its budget, and its planned deadlines are models of the development project

Work products

• a work product is an artifact that is produced during the development, such as a document or a piece of software for other developers or for the client
• we refer to a work product for the project’s internal consumption as an internal work product
• we refer to a work product that must be delivered to a client as a deliverable
• deliverables are generally defined prior to the start of the project and specified by a contract binding the developers with the client

Activities, Tasks, and Resources

activity