This is just an Excerpt from a larger document, click here to view the entire document.Introduction
The topic of the guest speaker, Jerry Weinberg, at ISSRE'97 (International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering) was "Why don't we do what we know how to do?" He went on to explain how the knowledge, the technology, and the methods for building reliable software are known, and have been known for some time - yet few organizations are reporting successful implementation of software reliability programs. He asked the audience, consisting of reliability experts from academia, government, and industry, for their thoughts. Responses included:
We are too busy fighting alligators - we don't have time to drain the pond.
It requires "buy-in" from management and from senior staff in order to implement.
The business process is not aligned with the reliability process.
Although the knowledge exists, it is not necessarily common or well known or understood by the practitioners.
It became obvious as the discussion continued that "people" issues are at the forefront of our problems in and slow movement along the path to "reliable" software. Each organization needs someone to "champion" and that person need not be the manager, or the department head. The effort need not be full scale but participants need to identify and sustain a common goal.
This START attempts to clarify the common goal, to identify the essential components of the software reliability engineering discipline which, if implemented, can guide an organization to developing more reliable software.
