The process of component- and component-based system development differs in many significant ways from the "classical" development process of software systems. The main difference is in the separation of the development process of components from the development process of systems. This fact has a significant impact on the development process. Since the component-basedapproach is a relatively young approach in software engineering, the main emphasis in the area has been in development of technologies, while process modeling is still an unexplored area. This paper analyses the basic characteristics of the component-based approach and its impact on the development process and lifecycle models. The generic lifecycle of component-based systems and thelifecycle of components are discussed, and the different types of development processes are discussed in detail: architecture-driven component development, productline development and COTS-based development. Finally a short case study illustrates the principles and specifics of component-based processes.