Web engineering in action

Development of most large Web sites is not an event, but a process. Often it is a process without a well-defined ending point. In order to allocate resources and develop a Web site, we need to divide the overall process into a set of sub processes that are well defined and have measureable outcomes. To identify the required sub processes first we need to understand the broader issues and specific requirements of the stakeholders. This is known as the context analysis. Next we can bring in technologies and develop an overall architecture or a product model to solve technology related issues. Once we have a product model we can identify sub processes required to implement this product model. Also we need to have a set of sub processes to address non technical issues identified during the context analysis phase. These sub processes can be converted into a project plan by allocating resources and putting a time schedule. Based on the project plan, development activities can take place and when completed it moves into a maintenance phase. This paper describes how we used this systematic approach to develop a large maintainable Web site.