A Cpf Activity: Actions and Tasks

A framework or an umbrella activity is composed of one or more actions. The actions collectively address the requirements of the activity.

In the CPF, each action, in turn, is represented by a number of task sets. Each task set is a collection of tasks to be performed, the work products to be built, and the quality assurance (QA) checkpoints and project milestones to be achieved. 

For example, consider the framework activity, 'modeling'. This activity consists of two software engineering actions-analysis and design. In analysis, an analysis model is produced, and in design, a design model and/or the design document is produced. 

Let us look at the description of a task set in detail.

The CPF: Task sets

For each action, a suitable task set has to be performed. Although many task sets may be defined for an action, the project team selects the most suitable task set for a project.

A task set is described in terms of the following.

* The tasks to be performed

* The work products to be built

* The QA checkpoints to be achieved

* The project milestones to be achieved

For each action, the CPF should include a description of the task sets that caters to all types of projects that will use the CPF.

Adaptation guidelines

The selection of a task set described in the CPF depends on factors such as the complexity, size, and criticality of a project and the project schedule. 

For the ease of adaptation, it is necessary to provide the adaptation guidelines with the CPF.

To understand the need for the adaptation guidelines, let us look at an example to see how the selection of a task set varies depending on the project characteristics.

Selection of a task set: An example

Consider a project in which one week of effort is budgeted for providing a function that will compute the shipping charges for an e-commerce Web site based on a customer's shipment choices. There is just one action (customer communication) for the 'customer communication' framework...