Unifying the Software Process Spectrum

This volume contains papers presented at SPW 2005, the Software Process Workshop held in Beijing, P. R. China, on May 25-27, 2005, and prepared for final publication. The theme of SPW2005 was Unifying the Software Process Spectrum. Software process encompasses all the activities that aim at developing or evolving software products. The expanding role of software and information systems in the world has focused increasing attention on the need for assurances that software systems can be developed at acceptable speed and cost, on a predictable schedule, and in such a way that resulting systems are of acceptably high quality and can be evolved surely and rapidly as usage contexts change. This sharpened focus is creating new challenges and opportunities for software process technology. The increasing pace of software s- tem change requires more lightweight and adaptive processes, while the increasing mission criticality of software systems requires more process predictability and c- trol as well as more explicit attention to business or mission values. Emergent app- cation requirements create a need for ambiguity tolerance. Systems of systems and global development create needs for scalability and multi-collaborator, multi-culture concurrent coordination. COTS products provide powerful capabilities, but their v- dor-determined evolution places significant constraints on software definition, dev- opment, and evolution processes. The recognition of these needs has spawned a considerable amount of software process research across a broad spectrum.