Who is Watts Humphrey? An American Software Engineer
While clearing out and donating many of my old books - I came across one which avoided the bin. It had a plain blue cover so I had to open it to read the title - Managing the Software Process by Watts Humphrey.
Some notes stuck inside the pages. Reading my notes turned into rereading parts of the book. Anyway, the book did made my very exclusive 'keep pile'. I owe Watts Humphrey a thanks - he really helped my career in software engineering.
A few things I learned from Watts:
1. How to run a software inspection. Find the problems, but don't try to fix them, say something positive, respect, track the things found, roles: developer, moderator, recorder, inspector. My opinion - inspections pay for themselves by reducing downstream issues, sharing best practices, and cross training.
2. Maturity Levels - Initial, Repeatable, Defined, Managed, Optimized. The ability to recognize where one is today - is paramount to advancing to a higher level. First, the GPS must find our current location before it can calculate our journey.
3. We need strong management support, specific goals and good training. Stop blaming the stars for our troubles. Take responsibility. Choose the right path (typically, it's the narrow one with few companions).
4. Entropy. Keep selling the good message, assess where we are today, measure it, improve it, enforce it, reward people's good behavior. Else slowly revert to a prior place. Everything breaks down if not given attention. This includes our relationships, our cars, eating habits, and yes, our good software development processes.
5. Work to prevent problems before they happen - and reward those who do this. Fixing failures after they occur - is a lesser good. Reward those who work to prevent issues before they happen.
Thank you, Watts Humphrey, the father of software quality
Managing the Software Process by Watts Humphrey, 1989 Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.