Some experiences with evolution and process-focused projects

For the last seven years students in the Masters track in Software Engineering at the University of West Florida have focused their capstone course and project work on software process and software evolution. Students initially defined a software maintenance process called GUMP which has been used in all subsequent years. Students use this process in a rolling project in which they maintain and enhance a medium-sized software tool. Simultaneously they improve the process based on their experiences, thus leaving their successors both enhanced software and an enhanced process to use in its evolution. Approximately 50 cycles of software change have been completed following this method, and two years ago a major revision to GUMP was undertaken based on an analysis of this experience. This article, by three of the instructors and two of the participating students, describes the methods used and the experience gained.