Technology to Impact Software Productivity

The search to find the "silver bullets" that will make dramatic improvements in the productivity of large software development teams is an ongoing one. At AT&T Bell Laboratories, a systems engineering approach has been applied in the past several years to the software development process itself. This systems engineering work has been instrumental in guiding a three pronged effort into software productivity improvements: (1) the application of good software development practices through an institutionalized discipline, (2) the identification and application of technology thrusts in the near and intermediate term, and (3) research for the longer term. Both the application of good software development practices and the technology thrusts rest on the notion that we can build on "the shoulders of past giants" and involve the application of software technology.