Guest lecture – Innovating Software Solutions: Past, Present, Future

On 26 Sept 2024, Steven and Denis gave an online guest lecture in the PA2580 Agile and Lean Development of Software Intensive Products (https://www.bth.se/eng/education/courses/20232/D5903/) in the Fall of 2024. PA2580 is one of the courses in the Master’s Programme in Software Engineering (60 credits) (https://www.bth.se/eng/education/masters/paasa/). The majority of the students are software professionals working in various companies in Sweden. Steve and Denis discussed a 25-year reflection on the Agile Manifesto at the event with more than 20 students who joined the session online.

Abtract: Sixty years ago, Software Engineering emerged as a new field to bring discipline and predictability to the management of large mainframe systems. The Waterfall approach, based on traditional engineering practices (i.e., gather requirements, design, build, and test), enabled managers to plan and monitor development activities. A second software revolution began in the early 2000s with the rise of Agile development. In contrast to Waterfall’s management controls, Agile was based on rapid iteration and developer interaction with customers. Agile was a response to the inflexibility of Waterfall processes and the explosion of customer demand for Internet applications. Agile was defined to meet changing requirements more quickly than Waterfall. Today, 25 years after the Agile revolution, there are new challenges. New technologies plus the impact of Open Innovation and Agile on business processes have altered the context and expectations for software production. We believe that a new revolution is underway today with the appearance of post-Agile methods. Our presentation will draw from the history of software engineering and discussions at the recent XP 2024 conference in Bolzano, Italy.

Speakers:

Steven Fraser is a strategic advisor on technology transfer, company-academic R&D partnerships, and agile development practices. Based in Silicon Valley (California), his work focuses on accelerating product R&D through collaboration, networking, and the incubation of “open innovation” ecosystems. Previously, Steve led HP’s Global University Programs, served as the Director of the Cisco Research Center, and orchestrated Qualcomm’s technical learning programs. While a Member of Scientific Staff at Nortel’s Computing Research Lab (CRL), Steve spent a year as a Visiting Scientist at Carnegie Melon University’s Software Engineering Institute (SEI). Steve is known for his interactive conference panels at ACM, IEEE, and Agile Alliance conferences (https://dblp.org/pid/75/1446.html). Steve holds a Ph.D. in Electrical (Software) Engineering from McGill University (Montréal) and is a Senior Member of both the ACM and the IEEE.

Dennis Mancl is a software engineering expert with decades of Bell Labs experience, working in the area of software practices in telecom. Dennis is an advocate for agile methods, and he has been involved in coaching for requirements modeling, software architecture planning, and legacy software techniques. Dennis has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Illinois. Today he specializes in soft issues in software engineering. Dennis’s website (https://manclswx.com) includes many talks and papers on software development topics.