Professionalization of Software Engineering: Next Steps

Abstract

Emerging critical social and economical factors have created a situation where it is vital that software engineering progress as a profession as soon as possible. This talk discusses current and near-term actions in the software engineering becoming a profession in four areas. One area is to clarify the "engineering" aspects of software engineering. This will help in establishing the boundary between software engineering and its related disciplines. Another area is to harmonize software engineering practices and consensus standards. This will contribute to a repeatable basis for the practicing software engineering. A third area is to identify the body of knowledge for software engineering. This will provide a foundation for software engineering education. Another area will be to baseline performance expectations for a software engineer practitioner. Performance expectations will provide the basis for the certification and licensure of individuals. The talk will use three perspectives to related progress and identify directions for each area. The three perspectives are: protection of the public in the use of software, development of software engineering work force, and improvement of the practice of software engineering.