Process patterns can be defined as the set of activities, actions, work tasks or work products and similar related behaviour followed in a software development life cycle. [1]
Process patterns can be more easily understood by dividing it into terms: "Process", which means the steps followed to achieve a task and "patterns", which means the recurrence of same basic features during the lifecycle of a process. Thus in a more universal term process patterns are common or general solution for a complexity.
Typical Examples are:
Process Patterns can be best seen in software design cycle which involves the common stages of development. For example, a generic software design life cycles has following steps: