Ivar Jacobson

Michael Goedicke

Pan-Wei Ng

Paul E. McMahon

Harold "Bud" Lawson

The first course in software engineering is the most critical. Education must start from an understanding of the heart of software development, from familiar ground that is common to all software development endeavors. This book is an in-depth introduction to software engineering that uses a systematic, universal kernel to teach the essential elements of all software engineering methods. This kernel, Essence, is a vocabulary for defining methods and practices. Essence was envisioned and originally created by Ivar Jacobson and his colleagues, developed by Software Engineering Method and Theory (SEMAT) and approved by The Object Management Group (OMG) as a standard in 2014. Essence is a practice-independent framework for thinking and reasoning about the practices we have and the practices we need. Essence establishes a shared and standard understanding of what is at the heart of software development. Essence is agnostic to any particular method, lifecycle independent, programming language independent, concise, scalable, extensible, and formally specified. Essence frees the practices from their method prisons. The first part of the book describes Essence, the essential elements to work with, the essential things to do and the essential competencies you need when developing software. The other three parts describe more and more advanced use cases of Essence. Using real but manageable examples, it covers the fundamentals of Essence and the innovative use of serious games to support software engineering. It also explains how current practices such as user stories, use cases, Scrum, and micro-services can be described using Essence, and illustrates how their activities can be represented using the Essence notions of cards and checklists. The fourth part of the book offers a vision how Essence can be scaled to support large, complex systems engineering. Essence is supported by an ecosystem developed and maintained by a community of experienced people worldwide. From this ecosystem, professors and students can select what they need and create their own way of working, thus learning how to create ONE way of working that matches the particular situation and needs.

Free the Practices from the Method Prisons!

The Essentials of Modern Software Engineering

Many organizations that have improved process maturity through Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI®) now also want greater agility. Conversely, many organizations that are succeeding with Agile methods now want the benefits of more mature processes. The solution is to integrate CMMI and Agile. Integrating CMMI® and Agile Development offers broad guidance for melding these process improvement methodologies. It presents six detailed case studies, along with essential real-world lessons, big-picture insights, and mistakes to avoid. Drawing on decades of process improvement experience, author Paul McMahon explains how combining an Agile approach with the CMMI process improvement framework is the fastest, most effective way to achieve your business objectives. He offers practical, proven techniques for CMMI and Agile integration, including new ways to extend Agile into system engineering and project management and to optimize performance by focusing on your organization’s unique, culture-related weaknesses.

Case Studies and Proven Techniques for Faster Performance Improvement

Integrating CMMI and Agile Development

Ian Spence

Svante Lidman

SEMAT (Software Engineering Methods and Theory) is an international initiative designed to identify a common ground, or universal standard, for software engineering. It is supported by some of the most distinguished contributors to the field. Creating a simple language to describe methods and practices, the SEMAT team expresses this common ground as a kernel–or framework–of elements essential to all software development. The Essence of Software Engineering introduces this kernel and shows how to apply it when developing software and improving a team’s way of working. It is a book for software professionals, not methodologists. Its usefulness to development team members, who need to evaluate and choose the best practices for their work, goes well beyond the description or application of any single method. “Software is both a craft and a science, both a work of passion and a work of principle. Writing good software requires both wild flights of imagination and creativity, as well as the hard reality of engineering tradeoffs. This book is an attempt at describing that balance.” —Robert Martin (unclebob) “The work of Ivar Jacobson and his colleagues, started as part of the SEMAT initiative, has taken a systematic approach to identifying a ‘kernel’ of software engineering principles and practices that have stood the test of time and recognition.” —Bertrand Meyer “The software development industry needs and demands a core kernel and language for defining software development practices—practices that can be mixed and matched, brought on board from other organizations; practices that can be measured; practices that can be integrated; and practices that can be compared and contrasted for speed, quality, and price. This thoughtful book gives a good grounding in ways to think about the problem, and a language to address the need, and every software engineer should read it.” —Richard Soley

Applying the SEMAT Kernel

The Essence of Software Engineering

Paul E. McMahon

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