We all know that Ivar Jacobson is the father of Use cases and that Use cases are a great vehicle for describing requirements. What many developers also know is that Microsoft’s Visual Studio has been a great management tool to enable team members to continuously collaborate providing comprehensive source control, code checkout and bug tracking tools. But what about developing Use cases in Visual Studio as a requirement – not as something you track such as a bug or defect? Read More
Countdown to the 2010 Olympics
I noticed the other day on my local newscast, that the opening ceremony for this year’s Winter Olympics is only a few weeks away. The newscast showed a sports team working together, training to win one of the most coveted prizes in their career. As per Wikipedia, team sport refers to sports where players interact directly and simultaneously to achieve an objective. When we put this at an Olympic scale, it combines 10,500 competitors from 204 countries. The stakes are high, preparation and training is intense and the cost of failure has tangible and not-so-tangible results. This newscast made me reflect on IJI’s daily interactions with IT teams and I had to conclude that perhaps the similarities are quite strong. Olympic athletic teams, like IT, which includes the study, design, development, implementation, support /management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications, is all about working together to achieve one same goal, either win the medal or in the case of IT have the software work seamlessly within an organization. Both teams consist of individual experts working together for a common goal to be the best. The stakes are high in both cases and the costs are equally high with real tangible dollars tied to wins or failures. Read More
Let the Business and IT play on the same team by Ivar Jacobson
Agile Development | December 19, 2009
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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.
SEMAT (Software Engineering Method and Theory): A Call for Action by Ivar Jacobson
Uncategorized | December 18, 2009
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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 More
Reflecting on 2009
Our new ‘corporate’ blog has been launched and I think the timing couldn’t be more serendipitous. As we come to the end of 2009, it is definitely a year that has caused quite a bit of reflection in the business and IT world. The world economic crisis forced many organizations to focus on the basics and ensure that core business was operating effectively and efficiently. Aligning IT to business became critical as every investment dollar was scrutinized. At IJI, one of the ways the business and technical teams align is by ensuring we’re communicating better as a team focused on a common set of objectives – the new blog is just one result of that strategy. Read More
Closing the Gap between Business and IT by Ivar Jacobson
Uncategorized | November 17, 2009
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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 More
There are practices and then there are Practices by Ivar Jacobson
Practices, Unified Process | November 10, 2009
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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 More
A Day of Honor by Ivar Jacobson
For Fun, Misc, Uncategorized | October 30, 2009
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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 More
Taking the temperature of UML by Ivar Jacobson
More than twelve years have passed since UML, the Unified Modeling Language, became a standard. During these years the perception of UML has ranged from the heights of the heavens to the depths of the earth.
At the beginning of the 1990s there were 26 published methods on object-orientation, most methods with its own notation. It was to address at least the notation problem that UML was conceived. As most of you probably know, Grady Booch, Jim Rumbaugh and I initiated the design of what became UML, but very quickly many other great people joined the effort and OMG undertook to launch the result. UML quickly made most other notations superfluous. Along with the notations many methods also fell by the wayside, leaving the Unified Process, which had embraced UML, as a de-facto standard along with UML. UML’s adoption spread like wildfire. Read More
In need of a theory for software engineering by Ivar Jacobson
Uncategorized | May 29, 2009
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To an external observer it would appear that the consensus about the way software should be developed changes dramatically every second or third year, more frequently than the whims of fashion. Trends seem to come and go with no rhyme or reason, and it seems that the label you adopt is more important than the results that you get or the things that you actually do.
Are we working in engineering or in a fashion industry?
Have you ever taken the time to investigate a new method or practice only to find that it is just the re-branding and re-gurgitation of ideas that you have seen many times before? Read More