NASA's plan for getting tough on software
- By Paula Shaki Trimble
- May 16, 2000
NASA's plan to embark on an agencywide effort to improve its software will
have four focus areas:
* Improve the process NASA civil servants and contractors uses to develop
software. That includes reaching higher levels on the software capability
maturity model developed at Carnegie Mellon University's
Software Engineering Institute.
* Establish metrics to measure productivity and quality of software developed
at NASA. Two sets of metrics will be used to evaluate the characteristics
of a project, including the skills of a project management team, and to
evaluate development by comparing the actual cost, schedule and requirements
against the planned allocations.
* Strengthen the use of verification and validation internally and at NASA's
Independent Verification and Validation center in West Virginia early in
software design.
* Conduct software research into ways to improve the reliability and reusability
of software code and processes.