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Process Models: Should the Software and Systems Engineering Communities Capitalize on their Similarities or Go their Separate Ways?

Process Models: Should the Software and Systems Engineering Communities Capitalize on their Similarities or Go their Separate Ways?
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Author(s): Rick Gibson (American University, USA)
Copyright: 2002
Pages: 4
Source title: Issues & Trends of Information Technology Management in Contemporary Organizations
Source Editor(s): Mehdi Khosrow-Pour, D.B.A. (Information Resources Management Association, USA)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-930708-39-6.ch059
ISBN13: 9781930708396
EISBN13: 9781466641358

Abstract

In response to increasing concerns about software development failures, the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) pioneered a software process improvement model in 1988, with the fully developed version of the Capability Maturity Model for Software (SW- CMMâ) appearing in 1993. Since the early nineties, there have been comparable improvement models introduced in the system engineering community as well, some of which have been published and widely accepted: Systems Engineering Capability Maturity Model (SE-CMM) also known as the Electronic Industries Alliance Interim Standard (EIA/IS) 731, Systems Engineering Capability Model (SECM); and the Integrated Product Development Capability Maturity Model (IPD-CMM). The resulting avalanche of models and standards has been described by Sarah Sheard (Software Productivity Consortium) as a “Framework Quagmire.” In December of 2000, the SEI initiated the Capability Maturity Model–Integrated (CMMISM) project, which combines best practices from the systems and software engineering disciplines. Note: CMMâ and CMMISM are copyrights and service marks of the Software Engineering Institute. Issues and concerns regarding such an integration were articulated by Barry Boehm and Fred Brooks as early as 1975. Boehm suggested that the adoption of systems engineering reliability techniques by software engineers was counterproductive. Moreover, Brooks’ Law suggests that a common system engineering solution to schedule slippage (add more people) will only make late software project even later.

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