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 <title>About Eclipse Process Framework Composer</title>
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 <h1 class="topictitle1">About Eclipse Process Framework Composer</h1>
 <div><p>Welcome to Eclipse Process Framework Composer (EPF Composer). EPF Composer is a tool platform that
 enables process engineers and managers to implement, deploy, and maintain
 processes for organizations or individual projects. Typically, two key problems
 need to be addressed to successfully deploy new processes.</p>
 <p>First, development teams need to be educated on the methods applicable
 to the roles that they are responsible for. Software developers typically
 need to learn how to do analysis and design, testers need to learn how to
 test implementations against requirements, managers need to learn how to manage
 the project scope and change, and so on. Some organizations assume that developers
 implicitly know how to do such work without documenting their methods, but
 many organizations want to establish common and regulated practices, to drive
 specific improvement objectives, and to meet compliance standards. </p>
 <p>Second, development teams need to understand how to apply these methods
 throughout a development lifecycle. That is, they need to define or select
 a development process. For example, requirements management methods have to
 be applied differently in early phases of a project where the focus is on
 elicitation of stakeholder needs and requirements and scoping a vision, than
 in later phases where the focus is on managing requirements updates and changes
 and performing impact analysis of these requirements changes. Teams also need
 clear understanding of how the different tasks of the methods relate to each
 other, for example, how the change management method impacts the requirements
 management method as well as regression testing method throughout the lifecycle.
 Even self-organizing teams need to define a process that gives at minimum
 some guidance on how the development will be scoped throughout the lifecycle,
 when milestones will be achieved and verified, and so on.  </p>
 <div class="p">To that end, EPF Composer has two main purposes:<ul><li>To provide a knowledge base of intellectual capital which you can browse,
 manage and deploy. This content can include externally developed content,
 and, more importantly, can include your own content including of whitepapers,
 guidelines, templates, principles, best practices, internal procedures and
 regulations, training material, and any other general descriptions of your
 methods. This knowledge base can used for reference and education. It also
 forms the basis for developing processes (the second purpose). EPF Composer is designed
 to be a content management system that provides a common management structure
 and look and feel for all of your content, rather than being a document management
 system in which you would store and access hard to maintain legacy documents
 all in their own shapes and formats. All content managed in EPF Composer can be published
 to html and deployed to Web servers for distributed usage. </li>
 <li>To provide process engineering capabilities by supporting process engineers
 and project managers in selecting, tailoring, and rapidly assembling processes
 for their concrete development projects. EPF Composer provides catalogs of pre-defined
 processes for typical project situations that can be adapted to individual
 needs. It also provides process building blocks, called capability patterns,
 that represent best development practices for specific disciplines, technologies,
 or management styles. These building blocks form a toolkit for quick assembly
 of processes based on project-specific needs. EPF Composer also allows you to set up
 your own organization-specific capability pattern libraries. Finally, the
 processes created with EPF Composer can be published and deployed as Web sites. </li>
 </ul>
 </div>
 <div class="p"><strong>Eclipse Process Framework Composer Key Concepts</strong><ul><li>Provides completely redesigned tools for authoring, configuring, viewing,
 and publishing development processes. </li>
 <li>Provides just-in-time generation of publication previews in dedicated
 browsing perspective that allows rapid configuration switching. </li>
 <li>Manages method content using simple form-based user interfaces. Therefore,
 UML modeling skills are no longer required. </li>
 <li>Provides intuitive rich text editors for creating illustrative content
 descriptions. Editors allow use of styles, images, tables, hyperlinks, and
 direct HTML editing.</li>
 <li>Allows creating processes with breakdown structure editors and workflow
 diagrams through use of multi-presentation process editors. Breakdown structure
 editor supports different process views: work-breakdown view, work product
 usage view, and team allocation view. EPF Composer automatically synchronizes all presentations
 with process changes. </li>
 <li>Provides support for many alternative lifecycle
 models. For example, waterfall, incremental, or iterative models can be created
 with the same overlapping method content. </li>
 <li>Improved reuse and extensibility capabilities. The plug-in mechanisms
 from past versions have been extended to support extensions for breakdown
 structures.</li>
 <li>Supports reusable dynamically-linked process patterns of best practices
 for rapid process assembly via drag-and-drop. </li>
 </ul>
 </div>
 <p><strong>Key Terminology and Concepts</strong></p>
 <p>To effectively work with EPF Composer, you need to understand a few
 concepts that are used to organize the content. The pages Method Content Authoring
 Overview and Process Authoring Overview contain more detail and concrete examples
 of how to work in the tool. This page provides you with a general overview
 of these concepts. </p>
 <p>The most fundamental principle in EPF Composer is the separation of reusable core
 method content from its application in processes. This directly relates back
 to the two purposes of EPF Composer described in the first section. Almost all of EPF Composer's
 concepts are categorized along this separation. Method content describes what
 is to be produced, the necessary skills required and the step-by-step explanations
 describing how specific development goals are achieved. These method content
 descriptions are independent of a development lifecycle. Processes describe
 the development lifecycle. Processes take the method content elements and
 relate them into semi-ordered sequences that are customized to specific types
 of projects. </p>
 <p><img src="uma_hump.gif" alt="" /></p>
 <p>The figure above shows how this separation is depicted in Basic Unified
 Process. Method content, describing how development work is being performed,
 is categorized by disciplines along the y-axis of the diagram. The work described
 in a process is seen along the x-axis representing the timeline. This is the
 lifecycle of a development project. It expresses when what work will be performed.
 The graph in the illustration represents an estimated workload for each discipline.
 As you see, for example, one never stops working on requirements in OpenUP/Basic, but
 there are certainly peak times in which most of the requirements elicitation
 and description work is performed. There are also times at which a downward
 trend needs to be observed where fewer and fewer requirements changes have
 to be processed to bring the project to a close. This avoids what is referred
 to as feature creep in which requirements work remains constant or even increases.
 Hence, a lifecycle (process) expresses the variances of work performed in
 the various disciplines (method content). </p>
 <p><img src="meth_vs_proc.gif" alt="" /></p>
 <p>The picture above provides a summary of the key elements used in EPF Composer and
 how they relate to method content or process. As you see, method content is
 primarily expressed using work products, roles, tasks, and guidance. Guidance,
 such as checklists, examples, or roadmaps, can also be defined to provide
 exemplary walkthroughs of a process. On the right-hand side of the diagram,
 you see the elements used to represent processes in EPF Composer. The main element
 is the activity that can be nested to define breakdown structures as well
 as related to each other to define a flow of work. Activities also contain
 descriptors that reference method content. Activities are used to define processes
 of which EPF Composer support two main kinds: delivery processes and capability patterns.
 Delivery processes represent a complete and integrated process template for
 performing one specific type of project. They describe a complete end-to-end
 project lifecycle and are used as a reference for running projects with similar
 characteristics. Capability patterns are processes that express and communicate
 process knowledge for a key area of interest such as a discipline or a best
 practice. They are also used as building blocks to assemble delivery processes
 or larger capability patterns. This ensures optimal reuse and application
 of their key best practices in process authoring activities in EPF Composer.</p>
 </div>
 <div><div class="relconcepts"><strong>Related concepts</strong><br />
 <div><a href="methodauthoringoverview.html#methodauthoringoverview">Method Content Authoring Overview</a></div>
 <div><a href="processauthoringoverview.html#processauthoringoverview">Process Authoring Overview</a></div>
 </div>
 </div>
 </body>
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	Contributors:
	IBM Corporation - initial implementation
	-->
	<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="./ibmdita.css" />
	<title>About Eclipse Process Framework Composer</title>
	</head>
	<body id="aboutepfcomposer"><a name="aboutepfcomposer"><!-- --></a>

	<h1 class="topictitle1">About Eclipse Process Framework Composer</h1>
	<div><p>Welcome to Eclipse Process Framework Composer (EPF Composer). EPF Composer is a tool platform that
	enables process engineers and managers to implement, deploy, and maintain
	processes for organizations or individual projects. Typically, two key problems
	need to be addressed to successfully deploy new processes.</p>
	<p>First, development teams need to be educated on the methods applicable
	to the roles that they are responsible for. Software developers typically
	need to learn how to do analysis and design, testers need to learn how to
	test implementations against requirements, managers need to learn how to manage
	the project scope and change, and so on. Some organizations assume that developers
	implicitly know how to do such work without documenting their methods, but
	many organizations want to establish common and regulated practices, to drive
	specific improvement objectives, and to meet compliance standards. </p>
	<p>Second, development teams need to understand how to apply these methods
	throughout a development lifecycle. That is, they need to define or select
	a development process. For example, requirements management methods have to
	be applied differently in early phases of a project where the focus is on
	elicitation of stakeholder needs and requirements and scoping a vision, than
	in later phases where the focus is on managing requirements updates and changes
	and performing impact analysis of these requirements changes. Teams also need
	clear understanding of how the different tasks of the methods relate to each
	other, for example, how the change management method impacts the requirements
	management method as well as regression testing method throughout the lifecycle.
	Even self-organizing teams need to define a process that gives at minimum
	some guidance on how the development will be scoped throughout the lifecycle,
	when milestones will be achieved and verified, and so on. </p>
	<div class="p">To that end, EPF Composer has two main purposes:<ul><li>To provide a knowledge base of intellectual capital which you can browse,
	manage and deploy. This content can include externally developed content,
	and, more importantly, can include your own content including of whitepapers,
	guidelines, templates, principles, best practices, internal procedures and
	regulations, training material, and any other general descriptions of your
	methods. This knowledge base can used for reference and education. It also
	forms the basis for developing processes (the second purpose). EPF Composer is designed
	to be a content management system that provides a common management structure
	and look and feel for all of your content, rather than being a document management
	system in which you would store and access hard to maintain legacy documents
	all in their own shapes and formats. All content managed in EPF Composer can be published
	to html and deployed to Web servers for distributed usage. </li>
	<li>To provide process engineering capabilities by supporting process engineers
	and project managers in selecting, tailoring, and rapidly assembling processes
	for their concrete development projects. EPF Composer provides catalogs of pre-defined
	processes for typical project situations that can be adapted to individual
	needs. It also provides process building blocks, called capability patterns,
	that represent best development practices for specific disciplines, technologies,
	or management styles. These building blocks form a toolkit for quick assembly
	of processes based on project-specific needs. EPF Composer also allows you to set up
	your own organization-specific capability pattern libraries. Finally, the
	processes created with EPF Composer can be published and deployed as Web sites. </li>
	</ul>
	</div>
	<div class="p"><strong>Eclipse Process Framework Composer Key Concepts</strong><ul><li>Provides completely redesigned tools for authoring, configuring, viewing,
	and publishing development processes. </li>
	<li>Provides just-in-time generation of publication previews in dedicated
	browsing perspective that allows rapid configuration switching. </li>
	<li>Manages method content using simple form-based user interfaces. Therefore,
	UML modeling skills are no longer required. </li>
	<li>Provides intuitive rich text editors for creating illustrative content
	descriptions. Editors allow use of styles, images, tables, hyperlinks, and
	direct HTML editing.</li>
	<li>Allows creating processes with breakdown structure editors and workflow
	diagrams through use of multi-presentation process editors. Breakdown structure
	editor supports different process views: work-breakdown view, work product
	usage view, and team allocation view. EPF Composer automatically synchronizes all presentations
	with process changes. </li>
	<li>Provides support for many alternative lifecycle
	models. For example, waterfall, incremental, or iterative models can be created
	with the same overlapping method content. </li>
	<li>Improved reuse and extensibility capabilities. The plug-in mechanisms
	from past versions have been extended to support extensions for breakdown
	structures.</li>
	<li>Supports reusable dynamically-linked process patterns of best practices
	for rapid process assembly via drag-and-drop. </li>
	</ul>
	</div>
	<p><strong>Key Terminology and Concepts</strong></p>
	<p>To effectively work with EPF Composer, you need to understand a few
	concepts that are used to organize the content. The pages Method Content Authoring
	Overview and Process Authoring Overview contain more detail and concrete examples
	of how to work in the tool. This page provides you with a general overview
	of these concepts. </p>
	<p>The most fundamental principle in EPF Composer is the separation of reusable core
	method content from its application in processes. This directly relates back
	to the two purposes of EPF Composer described in the first section. Almost all of EPF Composer's
	concepts are categorized along this separation. Method content describes what
	is to be produced, the necessary skills required and the step-by-step explanations
	describing how specific development goals are achieved. These method content
	descriptions are independent of a development lifecycle. Processes describe
	the development lifecycle. Processes take the method content elements and
	relate them into semi-ordered sequences that are customized to specific types
	of projects. </p>
	<p><img src="uma_hump.gif" alt="" /></p>
	<p>The figure above shows how this separation is depicted in Basic Unified
	Process. Method content, describing how development work is being performed,
	is categorized by disciplines along the y-axis of the diagram. The work described
	in a process is seen along the x-axis representing the timeline. This is the
	lifecycle of a development project. It expresses when what work will be performed.
	The graph in the illustration represents an estimated workload for each discipline.
	As you see, for example, one never stops working on requirements in OpenUP/Basic, but
	there are certainly peak times in which most of the requirements elicitation
	and description work is performed. There are also times at which a downward
	trend needs to be observed where fewer and fewer requirements changes have
	to be processed to bring the project to a close. This avoids what is referred
	to as feature creep in which requirements work remains constant or even increases.
	Hence, a lifecycle (process) expresses the variances of work performed in
	the various disciplines (method content). </p>
	<p><img src="meth_vs_proc.gif" alt="" /></p>
	<p>The picture above provides a summary of the key elements used in EPF Composer and
	how they relate to method content or process. As you see, method content is
	primarily expressed using work products, roles, tasks, and guidance. Guidance,
	such as checklists, examples, or roadmaps, can also be defined to provide
	exemplary walkthroughs of a process. On the right-hand side of the diagram,
	you see the elements used to represent processes in EPF Composer. The main element
	is the activity that can be nested to define breakdown structures as well
	as related to each other to define a flow of work. Activities also contain
	descriptors that reference method content. Activities are used to define processes
	of which EPF Composer support two main kinds: delivery processes and capability patterns.
	Delivery processes represent a complete and integrated process template for
	performing one specific type of project. They describe a complete end-to-end
	project lifecycle and are used as a reference for running projects with similar
	characteristics. Capability patterns are processes that express and communicate
	process knowledge for a key area of interest such as a discipline or a best
	practice. They are also used as building blocks to assemble delivery processes
	or larger capability patterns. This ensures optimal reuse and application
	of their key best practices in process authoring activities in EPF Composer.</p>
	</div>
	<div><div class="relconcepts"><strong>Related concepts</strong><br />
	<div><a href="methodauthoringoverview.html#methodauthoringoverview">Method Content Authoring Overview</a></div>
	<div><a href="processauthoringoverview.html#processauthoringoverview">Process Authoring Overview</a></div>
	</div>
	</div>
	</body>
	</html>