Personal Software Process (PSP)

The SEI CMM which is reference model for raising the maturity levels of software and predicts the most expected outcome from the next project undertaken by the organizations does not tell software developers about how to analyze, design, code, test and document the software products, but expects that the developers use effectual practices. The Personal Software Process realized that the process of individual use is completely different from that required by the team. Personal Software Process (PSP) is the skeleton or the structure that assist the engineers in finding a way to measure and improve the way of working to a great extend. It helps them in developing their respective skills at a personal level and the way of doing planning, estimations against the plans.

Objectives of PSP :

The aim of PSP is to give software engineers with the regulated methods for the betterment of personal software development processes. The PSP helps software engineers to:

• Improve their approximating and planning skills.
• Make promises that can be fulfilled.
• Manage the standards of their projects.
• Reduce the number of faults and imperfections in their work.

Time measurement:

Personal Software Process recommend that the developers should structure the way to spend the time. The developer must measure and count the time they spend on different activities during the development.

PSP model defines 5 framework activities:

1. Planning
2. High Level Design
3. High Level Design Review
4. Development
5. Postmortem

Planning: The engineers should plan the project before developing because without planning a high effort may be wasted on unimportant activities which may lead to a poor and unsatisfactory quality of the result. Here the development tasks are identified, and project scheduling takes place.

High level design: In this framework activity, external specification of each component is created, and prototype are built.

High level design review: Verification process is applied to uncover the errors in the design.

Development: Here the code is generated, reviewed, compiled and tested.

Postmortem: Here the effectiveness of the process is defined.

Levels of Personal Software Process:

Personal Software Process (PSP) has four levels-

1. PSP 0 – The first level of Personal Software Process, PSP 0 includes Personal measurement, basic size measures, coding standards.
2. PSP 1 – This level includes the planning of time and scheduling.
3. PSP 2 – This level introduces the personal quality management, design and code reviews.
4. PSP 3 – The last level of the Personal Software Process is for the personal process evolution.