The Software Engineer’s Job

What Is Software Engineering  The job of the software engineer is to deliver high-quality software products at agreed cost and schedule.  To do an effective job they need to: plan their work, do their work according to this plan, and strive to produce the highest quality products.

Why Is Good Engineering Important?  Historically, few software organizations have reliably met their cost and schedule commitments.  This has given the field of software engineering a bad name.  Poor software has caused companies to fail, space missions to fail, and even people to die.

The Personal Software Process  Designed to help software engineers to do good work.  Shows how to apply advanced engineering methods to daily tasks.  Provides detailed estimating and planning methods and ways to track progress against plans.  Explains how processes can guide work.

The Discipline of High-Quality Work  The discipline of the Personal Software Process (PSP) provides a structured framework for developing the personal skills and methods needed by software engineers.  In many other fields, such as chemistry, medicine, music, etc., professionals spend considerable time in learning and practicing the skills needed in their jobs; it should be no different for software engineers.

The Importance of High- Quality Work  Even if you work on only a small part of a larger system, quality problems in your part can cause the whole system to fail.  To produce quality software systems, every engineer on the project must do quality work.  If you consistently produce high-quality software, you and your products will be highly valued by your employers and your customers.

How to Improve the Quality of Your Work  The secret is to change the process you are using to become more effective.  The hard part is often figuring out what to change.  You must evaluate (measure) the process you are using, including the quality of the result.  This often highlights the steps that need changing.  Once changes have been made, the effectiveness of the new process must be measured to quantify the improvement.

The Improvement Process Define the quality goal Measure product quality Understand the process Adjust the process Use the adjusted process Measure the results Compare the results with the goal Recycle and continue improving

Example Course Tasks Engineer______________________ Date_________________ TaskFrequencyTime (minutes) Attend classesM,W250/week Read textbookWeekly180/week HomeworkWeekly240/week Write programsWeekly420/week Prepare for ExamsTwice a semester300/semester Review notesDuring homeworkIncluded above