IPSE Acronym for integrated project support environment. Within the Alvey Programme of IT research and development in the UK, three generations of IPSE were described.

First-generation IPSEs were characterized as comprising a set of tools to support programming activities throughout the software life cycle and a set of management tools to support project, configuration, and quality management activities across all life-cycle activities. These tools stored all project information as files within a filestore. However there was a low degree of integration, interaction, and exchange of information between the various tools. There was also limited flexibility in the choice of tools and methods available within the IPSE.

Second-generation IPSEs are characterized as having an object management system (OMS) usually based on a relational database. Through the OMS the tools could exchange information and cooperate in providing coverage of the various activities taking place within and across life-cycle phases. Second-generation IPSEs also had a common user interface to the tools, but not necessarily a public tool interface (PTI).

Third-generation IPSEs are characterized by in-built support from knowledge bases and expert systems to guide the user in the choice of tools and methodology for software development and management.

Further concepts included an IPSE framework that provided the basic user support of an OMS, a user interface, and the ability to add user-selected methods and tools. IPSE frameworks would be configurable to create the specific environment required by a user for the user's application domain. To enable tool integration, IPSE frameworks used a PTI that specified the interfaces to the OMS and the user interface.

IPSE (ˈɪpsɪ) Computing integrated project support environment