Two software leadeers: Paul Nielsen, CEO of the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, left, saluted the work of the Viterbi School's CSE director Barry Boehm at a three day meeting in which a new CSE software paradigm co--developed by Boehm was discussed.

The USC Viterbi School's Center for Software Engineering welcomed representatives of its 31 industrial and government partners to the USC campus for three days of collaboration and reports including a major presentation on a new 'agile spiral' path to building ambitious computing projects by CSE founder and director Barry Boehm.

Boehm is a national academy of engineering (NAE) member who has led the center since he created it in 1993 "for the purpose of providing an environment for research and teaching in the areas of large-scale software design and development processes." He spoke about plans to expand CSE's thrust beyond software into systems engineering. A proposed Center for Systems and Software Engineering will be co-directed by Boehm and Prof. Stan Settles, another NAE member and Director of USC’s leading Systems Architecting and Engineering program.

Boehm's main presentation at the meeting, on "Hardware/Software Human Systems Integration Context and Processes," offered an overview of a "scalable, spiral process" meant to combine discipline and agility in creating new computer solutions.

For a long time, according to Boehm, software development followed a sequential, document-driven process called the "waterfall" model, in which software requirements flowed down into design and then further down to computer programs.  However, the heavyweight documentation and long development times of the waterfall model has made its continued use less and less attractive. 

 

While at TRW in the 1980’s, Boehm developed the "spiral" model, which enables projects to concurrently grow the requirements, design and programs in ever widening spirals, using risk management to determine which parts are best done earlier, later, or not at all.  In a series of workshops with the industrial affiliates, Boehm and the CSE principals found that agile development had many advantages but did not scale up to very large software projects.

More recently, some developers have advocated the "agile" approach where software is developed without any documentation at all. In collaboration with one of the affiliates, Richard Turner of George Washington University, Boehm developed a way to scale up the spiral model to accommodate the best aspects of agile and waterfall development while avoiding their difficulties. They published an initial version of the scalable spiral model in a recent book, Balancing Agility and Discipline . The model is currently being experimentally applied and evolved by CSE and several of the affiliates

Whether Scalable Spiral computer practice will enter the software vocabulary the way other CSE constructs like the original spiral model or COCOMO (COnstructive COst MOdel) remains to be seen.

  But attendee Paul Nielsen, the CEO of the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, noted Boehm's prestige and influence in the field is nearly unique. The CSE affiliate list includes such names as IBM/Rational, Microsoft, Sun, HP, Motorola, many major aerospace companies and in government, the Defense Department, Federal Aviation Authority, and NASA.

  

 

Gary Hafen, a USC alumnus and software expert from Lockheed in the audience, spoke glowingly of his company's long-term work

"A lot of value:"  CSE industrial affiliate reps Gary Hafen, center of Lockheed and Lori Vaughan, right of Northrup-Grumman were on hand to pick up the latest CSE developments.

with Boehm's center. While Lockheed reaches out to more than 30 engineering schools around the country, Hafen said the Viterbi connection, and, specifically, the connection with CSE is among the "top two or three" in terms of productiveness.  

"Barry and his staff have been very responsive, Hafen said. "They have provided a lot of great concepts," particularly in the area of "agile development practices."

"We get a lot of value out of CSE," said a representative of another one of the affiliates, Lori Vaughan of Northrop-Grumman, who has been coming to USC weekly to work on another joint affiliates’ project with CSE. "We look forward to take some of these new concepts to the next level.”