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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Morris, Minnesota » Soil Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #57309
Title: IMPLEMENTING FORMAL SOFTWARE ENGINEERING WITHIN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

Author
item Alessi, Randolph

Submitted to: Software Engineering Workshop
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/9/1995
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Agricultural research desires to produce integrated software products to help farm and land managers. These goals are being addressed by application of formal software engineering principles, described by the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model, during the development of a prototype farm record-keeping system entitled Farmbook. Study of the Capability Maturity Model showed the importance of introducing basic management controls of the software engineering process. We began by introducing formal requirements management, project planning, tracking and oversight, and configuration management. We found that these topics were generally unfamiliar to agricultural researchers but that they did indeed help us to produce software on time and within budget. The approach has increased product quality and also has greatly reduced the stress levels of personnel involved in the project. Focusing first on basic management controls is essential if agricultural research is serious about producing quality integrated software products that can be utilized by farm and land managers.

Technical Abstract: Agricultural research desires to produce integrated software products to help farm and land managers. These goals are being addressed by application of formal software engineering principles, described by the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model, during the development of a prototype farm record-keeping system entitled Farmbook. Study of the Capability Maturity Model showed the importance of introducing basic management controls of the software engineering process. We began by introducing formal requirements management, project planning, tracking and oversight, and configuration management. We found that these topics were generally unfamiliar to agricultural researchers but that they did indeed help us to produce software on time and within budget. The approach has increased product quality and also has greatly reduced the stress levels of personnel involved in the project. Focusing first on basic management controls is essential if agricultural research is serious about producing quality integrated software products that can be utilized by farm and land managers.