The role of work management in application development

Quality is probably one of the most serious concerns of today's software community. For software applications exhibiting a certain complexity, the quality of a product can only be guaranteed by a methodological approach, using appropriate administration and tools. The methodology and administration must be manifested in a well-defined and well-observed application development process. The process must integrate the human activity, the tools, and the intermediate and final work products into a coherent flow of actions. In this regard, the development of applications follows patterns that are well established in other industries where an application development (AD) process model is defined and then executed via an interpretation mechanism. The complexity of the development process makes it necessary to support and integrate all of its aspects by means of on-line interactive computer support. Computer-aided process support in the general sense we call work management. This paper explains the concepts of an application development process model and of work management for application development under AD/Cycle™ and its relation to project management.