Introduction To Tgp

Introduction to the TGP Methodology

In the core of the TgpMethodology lies a language, enabling business personnel and programmers to communicate and cooperate efficiently. The principle of separation of passions tries to focus personnel in the areas that make them excited. Let the business professionals deal with functionality, and let the developers deal with how to make it work.

The BusinessProfessionals (also called Technical Business Analysts TBAs) and the developers create and maintain a shared model represented in the software. The shared model is focused on the areas that are likely to evolve in the course of time the flexible zones of the software. The shared model is a visual declarative object model of the business domain. TGP provides the visual tools for BusinessProfessionals and developers to change and extend the shared model. The VisualSharedModel enables a straightforward response to progress in the business world. The response is mainly performed by the BusinessProfessionals, defining the new business elements in a visual and safe, configuration-like environment (TgpArchitecture, TgpProcess).

The Problem Definition

A great many of the inefficiencies in the course of software development are due to misunderstandings and misinterpretations in the communication between people with different backgrounds. The lack of communication may lead directly to problems such as gaps between software features and customer requirements, and indirectly to problems such as delivery dates that are not met and poor quality standards. In a perspective of time, these difficulties increase into major obstacles, as the software needs to be maintained in a dynamic world.

The TGP Solution

TGP enables business professionals (who are not programmers) to take part in the development process, and to affect the software directly. The BusinessProfessionals are naturally involved in the customer's world; they understand the complexity and the uniqueness of the software business domain. Their passion is to provide a better business solution rather than using a cutting edge technology. The BusinessProfessionals share a deep involvement in the customer's needs. In a way, the BusinessProfessionals are the customers representatives in the development. The collaboration with BusinessProfessionals makes business expertise accessible to the developers. Furthermore, practicing TGP, the BusinessProfessionals affect directly the design and configuration of the software by interacting on the VisualSharedModel.

In the heart of the TgpMethodology lies a model, shared by the business professionals and the IT personnel, generating a way to design and produce software that satisfies the constantly evolving business requirements. In that sense, TGP is a way of managing the ongoing changes during the lifecycle of the software. TGP tackles this issue by implementation of a combination of its fundamentals - the TgpPrinciples. The collaboration with the business professionals starts with mapping the flexibility zones of the software, the features which are expected to change frequently, to the VisualSharedModel. TGP utilize a suitable infrastructure to handle the dynamics in these zones and to enable an efficient response (TgpArchitecture). The infrastructure facilitates a graphic editor enabling the business professionals to affect the software directly in a confined visual declarative environment (TgpProcess). Following a quick set up of the system, starts the incremental development, the business professionals present the requirements. Most of the requirements are fulfilled when the business professionals are using the graphical editor, as some of the requirements lead to an extension of the model executed through cooperation of business professionals and developers. The OrganicTesting provides another dimension in which the cooperation of the expertise of business professionals is utilized, and to gain more flexibility in the development process.

-- ShaiBenYehuda and OriInbar

CategoryAgileMethodology AgileProcesses AgileSoftwareDevelopment