Ivar Jacobson

Since the first time that I heard about the Software Engineering Method and Theory (SEMAT) initiative in 2010, I have been interested to see what would be the result. The publications of the first book about the essence of software engineering gives visibility for SEMAT to a larger audience. At the same time, the actionable kernel is also something that is useful in software development organizations to understand and improve their way of working.

The kernel described in the book consists of all kinds of activities that are done by software engineering teams. Teams can use the kernel elements to discuss how they are doing the software engineering activities, and explore different ways of doing them depending on their needs. The detailed descriptions of the elements on cards can be used by team members in their daily work, enabling teams to self asses their way of working and continuously improve themselves.

This first SEMAT book gives much attention to the agile principles and ways of software development, thereby confirming that agile is a usable and relevant approach to develop software. For organizations that are adopting agile and lean this book can be very helpful, as it actively support the agile concept of self-organization with the software engineering kernel.… (mehr)