Using models in software engineering

The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) has participated in several projects¹ in which the focus was on helping contractors make use of good software engineering methods and Ada. During this participation, we have learned several important lessons about the development of software for both large-scale and embedded systems. We have noticed that after a long period of time where the focus on productivity generated searches for new methodologies, tools, and ways to write reusable software, the emphasis has shifted to quality, in recognition of the fact that the new methods and tools were not adequate to address the problems occurring at the design level. We propose that the industry instead concentrate the search for the old methods still in use in the other branches of engineering, and apply those methods to the software problem.