In the following continuation of the Professional Praxis, you take part in the process specification/flow/engineering stage by stepping out of the project perspective and assessing how all the pieces of process (or how you accomplish things) fit together.

Consider the following scenario:

Pat's status message on the instant messenger reads, "'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.' - Ralph Waldo Emerson"

Thinking about this, you IM Pat saying, "Hey! Your status message made me think about our project. How do we know if the processes that we use as software engineers are not a foolish consistency, repeating processes that are ineffective?"

Pat responds, "I agree. We do need to think about that. Now that we have switched to the iterative model, let's do some process specification/flow/engineering. Process specification, flow, and engineering will help us evaluate and ultimately remedy process issues, improving cost, workflow, and the final product. Here's a diagram showing how process engineering works:"

Inputs Controls Process Resources Outputs