JCSE represented at top international software engineering conference

For more than 20 years the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) in Pittsburgh USA has been a leading force in defining and promoting concepts of "best practice" in software development. Every year since 1988 the SEI has hosted a conference - called the "Software Engineering Process Group", or SEPG Conference - at which software engineers from around the world gather to discuss "best practice" and how it can be achieved.

Between March 23rd and 26th 2009, the twenty-first SEPG Conference was held in San Jose, California. About 800 delegates attended, including Prof Barry Dwolatzky, Director of the Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE) at Wits University. He was the only South African delegate at the event. He says, "SEPG 09 was much smaller than in previous years. This is an indication of the effect that the international economic crisis is having in all sectors. The Conference, however, was extremely useful. The ideas and information presented are particularly relevant in this tough economic climate. Information Technology (IT) is the major driver in running organizations more efficiently and more effectively. Speakers at the SEPG presented some really important new ideas on how IT systems can best be developed and run to support organizational objectives."

An important highlight of the Conference was the formal launch of a new process improvement model called "CMMI for Services".  Over the past 20 years many people in the IT industry will have become familiar with the SEI's work in developing a Capability Maturity Model (or CMM) that is used to benchmark and assist organizations engaged in developing software systems. The "Software CMM" and CMMI were created by the SEI to assist organizations wishing to raise the capability and maturity of their development processes. The focus of these models is on projects that aim to develop new systems.

The new "CMMI for Services" shares a great deal of detail with the existing "CMMI for Development" model. It, however, aims to assist organizations providing ongoing services. It meets some of the same objectives as the well-known ITIL model, but has the advantage of integrating into the CMMI constellation of models.

Other important focuses of SEPG 09 were the relationships between CMMI and Agile software development - Alastair Cockburn, one of the key figures in the "Agile Movement" was a key-note speaker - and the growing success of the Team Software Process (TSP).

In the coming months the JCSE will be hosting events aimed at bringing more information about all of these issues - CMMI for Services, CMMI and Agile and TSP - to the South African software engineering community.