Ivar Jacobson's Blog

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it!“ (Alan Kay)

A few days ago, a very simple but thought provoking question was raised to me: “what it is that drives me?” The simple truth is that I do not know. But I do know what it is that does not drive me. It is not about money. Actually, never has it been about money. Neither is it about power. I am happy to step aside and I am happy to delegate both up and down. It is not about popularity – but I do like to be appreciated for what I do.

No, it has to do with helping others improve themselves over and over again. I get a kick out of seeing others become successful because I helped them. It was like that in the late 1960s and the ‘70s when the Ericsson AXE system beat all competition and won every contract thanks to being component-based. Similarly, when Rational was successful because of UML and Objectory. And Telelogic because of SDL. I am happy when people are successful thanks to use cases.

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From my horizon, I see two distinct and yet complementary macro-trends driving the way we become better at developing software. One could be called “Methods & Tools” the other could be called “Professionalism & Craftsmanship”. These two trends are not new, they have been around as long as we have built software. Both are based on the fact that it is people who develop programs, rather than methods and tools. But they take different approaches to the problem by focusing on different aspects of software development.

Trend “Methods & Tools,” exemplified by Semat Initiative (www.semat.org), of which I myself am one of the founders, drives the thesis that the way we develop software is immature and in need of being revolutionized. Yes, these are strong words, but the initiative is supported by more than 30 renowned scientists, scholars and practitioners in the software engineering field, including leaders from major industrial corporations (e.g., ABB, Ericsson, Fujitsu, IBM, Samsung, Microsoft, etc), academia (researchers, professors, institutional managers), and thousands of practitioners around the world.

Specific problems addressed are that often methods seem to be based on fashion and fads; that there are almost an infinitive number of methods that cannot be assessed or compared with each other. The number itself is not a problem. There should be many methods, however, these methods must be designed in such a way that they can be compared, assessed and improved. Finally, there exists a big barrier between academic research and industrial practices, which must be torn down.

The way forward is based on observation and understanding that:

1. Every method is just a composition of practices, either human or technology related.
2. Practices are reusable over many application areas and technologies.
3. Underneath all practices is a small kernel of universals described by a small kernel language.
4. Universals are things that we always have, do or produce when building software.  We will discover them!
5. Practices and universals will be described by a small Process Kernel Language.

Using this kernel and the language, we can describe all known methods, and, because practices are comparable, methods that are composed from these practices can be compared. I would like to tell you a lot more now, but it can wait for later. The impact of this SEMAT initiative is that, if successful, we will streamline the entire software world: from academia to industry, from practitioners to teachers and researchers. We will become better, faster, and happier in developing software.

After all, it is people who develop software, not methods and tools. So we must address the “human” side of software development.

Trend “Professionalism & Craftsmanship”, which is popular with the original founders of the agile movement, for instance by Bob Martin (“Uncle Bob”), who takes a very different standpoint. From this perspective, the big problem is not the lack of methods or tools, but how we train, educate and mentor programmers to become professional craftsmen. Code can be written by anyone at any time, but what makes us professionals?

1. We must be proud of what we do. We must be able to say “no” to either the boss or the customer, if necessary. We have our professional practices and these cannot be compromised.
2. The boss and the client must accept the fact that our work is technical in nature; so let them think we are geeks, but respectable geeks.
3. Eliminate hourly rate - doctors or lawyers are not paid by the hour (even if under pressure they may say so). There must be better ways to charge.
4. Anything that is worth doing should be done well and with quality. When we ship code, we must know that it works. Acceptance testers should not find any errors.
5. Become competent through an apprenticeship program. Choose a master and learn from him or her.  After some years you may select a new master and also learn from him or her.

Both trends are of course important.

Proponents of methods & tools suggest that it is clear that we must constantly improve professionalism. However, it would be much easier to be professional if we can elevate the level of our understanding of methods & tools.

Proponents of professionalism & craftsmanship are concerned that such an elevation means enforcing restrictions, and many are therefore hesitant or reluctant to work with or support initiatives related to methods & tools.

It is clear to me that we must do both. Since Bob Martin is a signatory of Semat, I think it is clear to him as well.

It is smart!

Last week, I attended a workshop of a new initiative in software engineering (SEMAT see www.semat.org). This was the first real f2f meeting we've had. 28 people attended the workshop and one session with around 12 people were working on developing more detailed objectives of the entire initiative.

To develop the objectives we appointed a facilitator. He suggested that we make a usage model for the Semat initiative. But for this blog, what we modeled is not so important. It is the principles that are important. We built up the model on a large bulletin board using yellow, rectangular post-it stickers. A usage was like a use case or a user story.  Long side up for usages. Short side up for users outside the system. These were in essence all the instructions we got.

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In my last three blogs, I discussed how we can close the gap between the business and IT. I summed up the way forward with the advice to stop thinking about the business as the customer and IT as the provider. Instead, let them work together in teams (similar to members of a soccer team), responsible directly to management.

It will not be an easy journey, but here are some steps along the way:

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To close the gap between business and IT we need to get them to play on the same team, as said in my two previous blogs. I compared this team with a soccer team in which the participants are not just specialists but also generalists – they can all kick the ball when called upon.

The Business-IT “team” should work in a similar way. Despite having specialized roles, all of the participants should contribute to achieve a common goal in order for everyone to be successful.

But do they? If they were a soccer team they would probably not win many, if any, games. Extending the soccer analogy, the business often acts like the absentee owner who wants the team to win but does not really want to take the time to be directly involved. Instead they try to micro-manage from a distance, demanding a detailed play-by-play plan for who is going to score and when, and they berate the team for not adhering to the plan. They will say that they will provide players (business representatives and product owners) but the players they assign are usually absent because they are too busy doing other things. As the team owner, they also don’t want to spend too much to hire the best players and coaches, but they still want to win against teams that are willing to spend more. Read the rest of this entry »

In an earlier blog (Nov 2009: Closing the Gap between Business and IT) I described the gap between business and IT and suggested a way forward: we must speak the same language.  That language must be more than just a spoken language; some simple drawings or models are often useful.  However, beware of business models inspired by software models, which assume an underlying abstract computational machine. We must work together pursuing common goals and results - without resorting to passing documents from one side to the other.  And we must deliver high-quality results on regular intervals.

Forrester says we should have a “fusion” of the business and IT, going beyond mere alignment. The idea is sound, but it is better to get them to play on the same team together and win.

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We are some people who have observed software engineering theory and practice of the past decades and have realized that it is now time to revitalize this discipline. We have been quietly planning a “revolution”.

For those who have been following my columns may know that, for a very long time, I have been talking about that we need a theory of software engineering. See my two blog entries, “A problem to fix: We don’t understand the nature of software engineering” February 2009, and “Someday we must become professionals!” March 2009, which describe my thoughts on this issue when it all started over a year ago. Read the rest of this entry »

From almost the dawn of the age of software more than 50 years ago, there has been a communication gap between business and IT. For almost as long we have sought solutions, but they always seem to elude us.  Meanwhile, the gap has grown into a chasm that now needs a fairly substantial bridge.

From the business you may hear that ”we have no confidence in IT’s ability to deliver useful solutions”, or “we have limited visibility of progress, risks and problems”, and “we don’t know how we should measure the value of our investments in IT.” Read the rest of this entry »

The software development community has been talking about practices in an informal way for a very long time - more than 50 years. In the way the community talks, a “practice” is just something that people do, a habit they have that may be good, or perhaps not good. Talking about practices in this way makes for good conversation, but it is hard to figure out how to combine good practices into something meaningful.

I like to talk about practices in a more precise way, so I will refer to these as Practices (with a capital ‘P’). With a more precise definition we can do some interesting things: we can combine them (or compose them) in interesting ways, and we can separate them to allow us to replace a practice with a better one. Read the rest of this entry »

Lima, Perú, October 21, 2009

This time I have something to tell you about my visit to Peru. I had been nominated to receive an honorary Doctorate degree from the University of San Martin de Porres (USMP) in Lima Perú. USMP is one of the most prestigious universities in South America. Thus, when I got the offer from USMP and saw people who previously had been awarded honorary degrees, I felt I was in great company. James Martin (the father of case tools and much more) and Nick Negroponte (the founder of MIT’s Media Lab and the “One Laptop per Child” Initiative) received the honorary degrees in 1997 and 2007 respectively. Read the rest of this entry »