Effective process integration for space-related software development

Due to the increasing complexity of system engineering and market constraints, space organizations developing software and systems are forced to define, deploy, and evolve highly efficient and integrated processes that address aspects such as distributed development in multi-organizational, multi-disciplinary, and sometimes multi-national settings. Often, such organizations are confronted with a lack of standardized and harmonized interfaces that would allow smooth integration of different types of processes (such as development and validation processes as well as processes across organizational or cultural boundaries). In addition, such organizations typically have to adhere to several regulatory constraints and standards with their processes. Due to the lack of harmonization between domains, processes, process standards, and nations, the need to integrate contributions from different disciplines (system engineering, software, hardware, economics) in a system development project makes collaboration even more difficult. The effectiveness of such processes is therefore significantly reduced. Usually, organizations collaborate today by adapting their own processes and work products project by project. This is a costly way of collaboration. This article describes how to effectively integrate processes for multi-organizational projects. Based on a description of fundamental process modeling approaches, different integration levels for collaboration are described and a roadmap is shown on how to smoothly improve this integration. In addition, advanced integration support with respect to process variability is sketched.