International standards: practical or just theoretical?

Abstract

m Standards in most disciplines have developed over a very long period of time. The world of information technology (IT) is, however, relatively young. Nonetheless, numerous IT standards have already been developed under the auspices of ISO/IEC JTC1, its many subcommittees, and their 56 member nations. The rigor of the procedures for developing these standards ensures that standards published by JTC1 represent world opinion in their form, structure, and content. These procedures also ensure that the standards fulfill a specific need, and thus are practical. nternational standards play an important role in the maturation process of software development and in the furthering of software engineering as a formal discipline. While standards are an accepted part of mature disciplines, such as (physical) engineering and most of the trades, they are not yet well-established in the area of software development and engineering. Although the telecommunications industry leads the way in the development and universal acceptance of information technology standards, it too is still immature. The multitude of mobile and cellular phone standards within the United States serves as an example. In many countries, acceptance of standards, international or local, is not automatic; they are, in fact, not always welcome. Often, this is due to a lack of understanding of how standards are developed. Indeed, the process of developing international standards is understood by few. Many within the standards development arena see the process as being overly bureaucratic. Many outside the arena doubt the ability of a standard to represent the user community. Still others see standardization as one of those things that just happen—too complex to even try to understand. In order to gain wide acceptance of international standards, it is essential that potential users understand the development process, and thus gain some degree of confidence in the standards. This is equally true whether their adoption of the standard will be voluntary or mandatory. We detail the development of international (ISO/IEC) standards showing that international standards, by virtue of their very rigorous development processes and the international makeup of their development committees, do present practical solutions to the problems that beset the rather young and, in parts, immature discipline of software engineering. To illustrate this rigor, this article will describe the procedures adopted by the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Commmittee for Information Technology, JTC1. It will discuss the subcommittees of JTC1 and, in particular, the work groups within Subcommittee 7 (SC7)—Software Engineering. Our article is structured as follows: The structure of ISO and its subcommittees, International Standards: Practical or Just Theoretical? F E A T U R E A R T I C L E