Software Engineering Method and Theory

Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in Korea gave a research grant of $100K to KAIST for setting up Korea Chapter of SEMAT, and contributing to further development and OMG standardization of Essence.  Professor June Sung Park is the principal investigator of this project. Congratulations June!

The first step of SEMAT was to develop a foundation for software engineering consisting of a kernel and a language to define methods, practices and kernel elements.  Such a foundation, called Essence, has been developed. The first part of the three-year vision has been fulfilled. Now it is time to start working on the next steps of SEMAT. Particularly, we need to work on three areas:

1.     Practice area:  for example, working on a practice library on top of the kernel, requirements of SEMAT, the development of tools, the development of courses in software engineering, etc.

2.     Theory area: for example, the development of a general theory of software engineering, and research in software engineering.

3.     Community area: for example, making SEMAT a legal entity, seeking funding, and growing the community.

Click SEMAT Moving Forward to read more.

An approach to applying Essence to systems engineering was discussed at the 4th INCOSE Russian chapter systems engineering challenges workshop that took place on April 11 – April 14, 2013

The roadmap of the Essence adaptation to the systems engineering had been agreed as follows (the roadmap is already published in Russian in the first paragraph of the workshop minutes: http://incose-ru.livejournal.com/42182.html):
1st of August 2013 – define model and architecture ontological status in the Essence
1st of September 2013 – publish first draft of the Essence kernel extension for Systems Engineering.
1st of December 2013 – map Essence Systems Engineering kernel elements to ISO 15926.
End of December 2013 – publish first version of the “Essence systems engineering kernel elements (mapped to the ISO 15926)”.

We are happy to announce that Ian Sommerville has kindly accepted to become a SEMAT signatory. His support will  bring the invaluable knowledge and insight to the growth of SEMAT.

We welcome professor Hanchuan Xu, professor of the school of Computer Science and Technology of Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), to become our academic signatory.

The technical program of GTSE 2013 is now out (has been changed slightly compared to an early version).

Please find the program here!

SEMAT is getting closer to reach its first milestone – a standard kernel and language. SEMAT has also started the work on establishing the general theory of software engineering.

Good history is encouraging, but we can’t live on our history. Now we need to scale up and we need experienced management to bring us to a higher level. Professor June Sung Park has gracefully agreed to be the new chairman of the SEMAT Executive Committee.

June is a professor in software engineering at KAIST, a leading university in Korea. Prior to that June was the CTO of Samsung SDS for more than a decade. Before joining Samsung June was a professor at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. June has been very interested in SEMAT from its beginning. He represented Samsung as a corporate signatory when he was with Samsung, and now he represents KAIST as an academic signatory. Currently June is in the process of setting up a Korean chapter of SEMAT.

We invite you to join us to welcome June as the new executive chairman of SEMAT. Under the leadership of June, with his abundant experience in both industry and academia, SEMAT will be advanced to a new chapter in software engineering history.

INCOSE Russian chapter pays a lot of attention to the proper description of systems engineering practices and methods. Situational method engineering standards, such as OPFRO OPF, SPEM 2.0 and ISO 24744, have been discussed at chapter’s meetings and conferences. These standards have also been used by chapter members to describe their systems engineering methods.

SEMAT is a global initiative started in 2009. It attempts to formulate the second generation of situational method engineering standard that focuses more on practitioners than methodologists.  A result of SEMAT is the newly submitted proposal to OMG:  “Essence – Kernel and Language for Software Engineering Methods”

Despite the fact that Essence is rooted in the software engineering domain, the INCOSE Russian chapter and the SEMAT community leaders are confident that Essence , with some minor modification, is also suitable for systems engineering.

Thus there is a need to extend Essence to make it suitable for describing Model Based Systems Engineering endeavors by generalizing  “software system” to a broader kind of system-of-interest, for example system of systems. We should develop kernel extension for modeling model-based and model-driven (with generative design and manufacturing) types of systems engineering practices.

For this purposes INCOSE Russian chapter will:

1. Recommend Essence as a preferable standard for systems engineering, including usage in systems engineering tutorials and curricula
2. Promote harmonization of Essence with other standardization recommendations (e.g. ISO 15926 initiatives, i.e. try to map Essence to ISO 15926 to have compatible form of Essence representation for contemporary CAD/CAE/PLM systems and issue trackers)
3. Appoint liaison (Andrey Bayda) to represent INCOSE Russian Chapter in SEMAT research and standardization activities

SEMAT community will:

1. Support generalizing Essence domain to other domains, in particular to systems engineering.
2. Provide advice on modeling systems engineering practices to INCOSE Russian chapter.
3. Recognize INCOSE Russian chapter liaison (Andrey Bayda) for coordinating work between the two parties

Please join us and practice Essence Tutorial at ICSE 2013 in San Francisco on May 25, 2013 and be part of a worldwide movement towards finding a common ground and a foundational theory of software engineering.  For more information of the Essence Tutorial, please click here. This tutorial is paired with a workshop on a General Theory of Software Engineering 2013 (GTSE 2013). Registration: http://2013.icse-conferences.org/content/registration