Reinventing the Wheel

2011

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, 2014

We understand software innovation as concerned with introducing innovation into the development of software intensive systems, i.e. systems in which software development and/or integration are dominant considerations. Innovation is key in almost any strategy for competitiveness in existing markets, for creating new markets, or for curbing rising public expenses, and software intensive systems are core elements in most such strategies. Software innovation therefore is vital for about every sector of the economy. Changes in software technologies over the last decades have opened up for experimentation, learning, and flexibility in ongoing software projects, but how can this change be used to facilitate software innovation? How can a team systematically identify and pursue opportunities to create added value in ongoing projects? In this paper, we describe Deweyan pragmatism as the philosophical foundation for Essence-a software innovation methodologywhere unknown options and needs emerge as part of the development process itself. The foundation is illustrated via a simple example.

2007

Professional Development • Selected as a Fellow in the 2004-2005 Claremont Graduate University Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program. The PFF program has four major goals: prepare students to be outstanding researchers of the 21st Century, prepare students to teach and advise at a variety of institutions, prepare students to perform service at the departmental and university level, and prepare students for the academic job market. Instructional activities include development of teaching philosophy, group research leadership, and creation of course portfolio including syllabus with teaching goals, learning objectives, and evaluation tools and criteria.

IEEE Software, 2000

The reengineering and reuse of large legacy software systems can be an expensive, error-prone endeavor. This paper relates experience in a collaborative research project supporting a NASA contractor team attempting just such a project. Risks both potential and realized are discussed, as well as how such a collaboration can be used to drive an academic research agenda. Organizational and social factors proved to be major aspects of the eventual project outcome.

IBM Systems Journal, 2000

Most improvements in software development technology have occurred by eliminating the accidental aspects of the technology. Further progress now depends on addressing the essence of software. Fred Brooks has characterized the essence of software as a complex construct of interlocking concepts. He concludes that no silver bullet will magically reduce the essential conceptual complexity of software. This paper expands on Brooks's definition to lay a foundation for forging a possible silver bullet. Discussed are the three essential attributes of software entities from which a number of consequences arise in software development: (1) conceptual content, (2) representation, and (3) multiple subdomalns. Four basic approaches to develop technologies are proposed that directly address the essential attributes. Although some of these technologies require additional development or testing, they present the most promise for forging a silver bullet. Among them, design reabstraction addresses the most difficult attribute, multiple subdomains, and the most difficult consequence, enhancing existing code, making It the best prospect.

International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining, 2008

Changes, they use to say, are the only constant in life. Everything changes rapidly around us, and more and more key to survival is the ability to rapidly adapt to changes. This consideration applies to many aspects of our lives. Strangely enough, this nearly self-evident truth is not always considered by software engineers with the seriousness that it calls for: The assumptions we draw for our systems often do not take into due account that e.g., the run-time environments, the operational conditions, or the available resources will vary. Software is especially vulnerable to this threat, and with today's software-dominated systems controlling crucial services in nuclear plants, airborne equipments, health care systems and so forth, it becomes clear how this situation may potentially lead to catastrophes. This paper discusses this problem and defines some of the requirements towards its effective solution, which we call "New Software Development" as a software equivalent of the well-known concept of New Product Development. The paper also introduces and discusses a practical example of a software tool designed taking those requirements into account-an adaptive data integrity provision in which the degree of redundancy is not fixed once and for all at design time, but rather it changes dynamically with respect to the disturbances experienced during the run time.

Information Systems Journal, 2003

2011

Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 2013

Innovation is a recurrent theme in public as well as academic debate, and software development plays a major role for innovation in about every sector of our economy. As a consequence, software innovation will play an increasingly important role in software development. The focus in this paper is on how to make innovation more likely to happen in software development at the level of the software team or project. At this level it is important to identify opportunities to create added value in ongoing projects. Changes in software technologies over the last decades have opened up for experimentation, learning, and flexibility in software projects, but how can this change be used to facilitate software innovation? This paper proposes a set of values to guide the development of a methodology to facilitate software innovation.