Dr. Ivar Jacobson - The Essence of Software Engineering: the SEMAT Approach

Google Zürich Tech Talk July 17, 2014 Presented by Ivar Jacobson & Ian Spence Link to slides: http://www.ivarjacobson.com/news.aspx?id=2203 ABSTRACT Google stands for big thinking with big data. It has plucked fabulously rich and previously hidden information out of a sea of data and given it context to change the way people work and play. SEMAT and Essence are big thinking for Software Engineers. There are millions of software engineers on the planet in countless programs, projects and teams; the millions of line of software that run the world are testament to their talents, but as community we still find it difficult to share our best practices, truly empower our teams, seamless integrate software engineering into our businesses, and maintain the health of our endeavors avoiding embarrassing and unnecessary catastrophic failures. The industry’s habit of constantly switching between no methods and the latest "one true way” (an affliction that sadly is even affecting the agile community) is not the way forward. As an industry we need to establish a solid foundation that will 1) enable teams to understand and visualize the progress and health of their endeavors regardless of their way of working, and 2) easily share, adapt, and “plug and play” with their practices to create the innovative ways of working they need to excel and continuously improve. A foundation that SEMAT and Essence provides by establishing an actionable common ground all teams can share and freeing the practices from the shackles of big process. In the same way that Google map shows you where you are, where you want to go, and the best way to get there when making a journey SEMAT and Essence can do the same for teams of engineers developing software. SPEAKER BIO Dr. Ivar Jacobson is a father of components and component architecture, use cases, the Unified Modeling Language and the Rational Unified Process. He has contributed to modern business modeling and aspect-oriented software development. Lately, Ivar has been working on how to deal with methods and tools in an agile and lean way. He is one of the leaders of SEMAT with the objective to refound software engineering as a rigorous discipline. In 2004, Ivar received the Gustaf Dalen medal from Chalmers Institute Of Technology, Gothenburg Sweden. He is an international honorary advisor at Peking University, Beijing, and he is an honorary doctor at San Martin de Porres University, Peru. He is the principal author of seven influential and best-selling books, including Object-Oriented Software Engineering, Business Process Re-engineering with Objects, Software Reuse: Architecture, Process and Organization for Business Success, The Road to the Unified Software Development Process, and The Unified Software Development Process, Aspect-Oriented Software Development with Use Cases, and lately The Essence of Software Engineering – Applying the SEMAT Kernel. He co-authored two UML books with Grady Booch and James Rumbaugh. Ivar is also a founder of Ivar Jacobson International, operating in seven countries around the world.