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Reviewer: Judy Marian Myerson

The concept of organization maturity emerged in early 1990's in the software development industry. It departs from the old concepts of software maturity that fail to consider the impacts of organizational and management styles on software development. Humphrey's basic purpose is to show that software engineering can be a more effective method of turning chaotic software development into a more controlled and manageable process. The book fulfills its purpose by presenting a framework and some techniques for evaluating and improving the process of developing software rather than presenting a specific set of solutions. The framework is embodied in a model of the SEI Software Process Maturity. It refers to the maturity of a software organization in improving a process of developing a product. The focus is shifted from fixing problems to preventing them. The book grew out of work at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University on a U.S. Air Force project. It could be used as an optional text in a graduate software engineering course, although exercises are absent. Another possibility is the use of the book as a tutorial or reference for software engineering and computer personnel. The book is divided into 20 chapters and three appendices. The chapters are grouped into five parts, each of which are identified with a separate facet of the software process improvement. Each book part is introduced with a brief overview and contains chapter summaries. Part I discusses a model of five levels of software process maturity, and covers the first level: the Initial Process. The software developmental at this stage is semi-chaotic. It provides an opportunity for automated approach for development and implementation of software process changes. In Part II, the Repeatable Process looks at plans for repeating the project successes. A set of predefined process procedures could be used as templates for several approaches to software development. Part III describes the qualitative characteristics of the software development in the Defined Process. Process definitions are built from the standardization of development activities in the software process. They can be used to tailor the procedures specific to a process activity. In the part on the Managed Process, quantitative methods, such as data gathering and analyses, are emphasized. They are used to measure quality of the product and the process by which the product is developed. The book ends with a discussion on the Optimizing Process. The emphasis is placed on the quantitative basis for continued capital investment in process automation and improvement. New ideas and technologies may be used in quantitative feedback. Appendix A provides a software process maturity framework. It is presented here to provide a broader perspective on the improvement needs of software organization. In it, fifteen arbitrary categories of software process improvement actions are grouped into four major topics: organization, project management, process management and technology. The typography, and illustrations are good. The book length and index appear to be adequate. The references at the end of each chapter are interesting and up to date. This book is a reference in Edward Yourdan's, "Decline and Fall of American Programmer," which looks at the implications of the model. Overall, Humphrey's book opens a door to further discussions on software engineering processes.