Guiding Principles

The OPEN Process Framework (OPF), the associated class library of method/process components, and the OPF repository are based on the following principles.

Flexibility

Allow the process engineer maximum flexibility when producing endeavor-specific and producer-specific methods:

• The repository contains a very large (over 1,100 entries) class library of reusable method/process components, enabling the process engineer to select only those components that are appropriate and cost effective.
• The process engineer can tailor the class library via inheritance to produce new versions of component that have the appropriate content.
• The process engineer can:
  • Delete unnecessary/inappropriate content, which is the most common type of tailoring because existing components are very complete in terms of their content. It is typically easier to delete the excess than it is to add what is missing.
  • Modify existing content.
  • Add missing content.

Standardization

Maximize useful standardization that does not lessen necessary flexibility:

• The OPEN Process Framework standardizes the core common terminology and concepts.
• The OPF Class Libarary provides a large set of standardized method/process components, which in turn standardizes a very large amount of common terminology and concepts.
• Tailoring is based on specialization, which significantly restricts the properties of subclasses. However, because it is important to provide flexibility and eliminate unnecessary content, specialization of method/process components allows deletion of unnecessary and inappropriate content.

Completeness

A complete process framework has numerous advantages:

• A complete process framework enables many more endeavor-specific processes to be constructed from its components without the need for extending it with new components.
• A complete process framework is more likely to be usable for any endeavor.
• A process framework, the components of which are completely documented, is less likely to be missing significant documentation.

The OPEN Process Framework provides a repository of process components that is very complete:

• OPF supports the major management, business engineering, application development, and operation activities:
  • Business Engineering:
    • Business Strategy
    • Technology Strategy
    • Business Architecting
    • Digital Branding
  • Application development:
    • Requirements Engineering
    • Architecting
    • Design
    • Implementation
    • Integration
    • Testing
    • Delivery
  • Operations:
    • Content Management
    • Maintenance
    • Operations
• OPF includes all major classes of process components:
  • Endeavors
  • Languages
  • Producers
  • Stages
  • Work Products
  • Work Units
• OPF provides a balanced inheritance hierarchy containing numerous subclasses for each major class of process component:
  • Endeavors - 15 subclasses of enterprises, programs, and projects.
  • Languages - 10 subclasses
  • Producers - over 120 subclasses of organizations, teams, roles, persons, and tools
  • Stages - 40 subclasses of cycles, phases, builds, and milestones.
  • Work Products - TBD subclasses
  • Work Units - over 300 subclasses of activities, tasks, and techniques
• OPF covers all major organizations, teams, and roles.
• OPF covers all major work products:
  • Documents
  • Application components (data, hardware, personnel, and software)
  • Business components (applications facilities, business units)
  • Metrics
  • Models
• Descriptions of OPF process components are very complete:
  • Name
  • Definitions
  • Classification (including superclass and subclasses)
  • Responsibilities
  • Guidelines
  • Core component-specific information such as:
    • Contents
    • Preconditions and Postconditions
    • Stages when relevant

Industry Best Practices

The OPEN Process Framework is based on the industry's best practices:

• Many internationally-recognized and authoritive sources.
• Requirements, Architecting
• Web-development guidelines

Usability

The OPEN Process Framework is highly usable:

• OPF-complient endeavor-specific processes are easy to construct using the contents of the OPF repository of reusable process components.
• OPF process components are easy to tailor. During an endeavor, it is easier to tailor out what is not needed from a complete work product.

Reuse

The OPEN Process Framework greatly supports reuse:

• Instead of having to create a process-specific process, you can build one using the reusable process components in the OPF repository.