A Technical History of the SEI

Executive Education Program
The Challenge: Effectively Managing Software Systems
With the success of the SEI academic curricula, a demand for executive education began to surface.
Defense industry and DoD executives whose expertise was in areas other than software began
to request executive education that would enable them to understand the issues associated
with managing software-intensive systems.
A Solution: Executive Education Program
The SEI recruited a retired industry vice president and a
retired flag officer to develop an executive education
program [Pietrasanta 1987]. The executive education offerings
were extremely popular with senior executives,
and the Air Force adapted the material for a program
called Bold Stroke for Officers at the rank of 0-6 and
above. Recognizing the role software played in Desert
Storm, the Army asked the SEI to offer a version of its
executive education program to Army flag officers and
Senior Executive Service (SES) civilians.
In the following years, the SEI continued to provide executive
education to the DoD. The United States Army
Strategic Software Improvement Program (ASSIP)
funded SEI activities with the goal of dramatically improving
the acquisition of software-intensive systems.
One of the ASSIP-funded activities was the Army Senior
Leader Education Program (SLEP). These annual
programs were developed by the SEI for the Army and
consisted of tutorials by SEI researchers about solving
the software challenges encountered by the Army senior
leaders.
The SEI continues to offer executive education programs
for commercial organizations. For example, the
SEI developed and hosted “Technovation,” a week-long
executive training lab specifically designed to support
GE’s Experienced Information Management Program
(EIMP). Technovation participants represented a range
of GE divisions and information technology roles. The
The View from Others
Given that the complexity of systems
is increasing exponentially,
Lt. Gen. Ross Thompson…decided
to make sure we can maintain
these systems. The chief software
architect (CSWA) will manage the
software architecture to ensure
best practices are being followed.
This gives the PEO a better chance
of overcoming system risks.
– Robert Teri, U.S. Army
Senior Software Acquisition
Manager [SEI 2009, p. 20]
Some of the biggest takeaways for
us were concepts around interdisciplinary
teams, creativity, and innovation.
At GE we’re always
looking for new ways to be even
more innovative, so this content
was especially interesting and
valuable.
– Jennifer Cherry, Leader – IT
Talent Development for GE,
commenting on
Technovation. [SEI 2012]
executive training was delivered by experts from the SEI and guest lecturers from Carnegie
Mellon faculty in areas such as robotics, interdisciplinary collaboration, team development, software
architecture and product line development, service-oriented architecture, data mining, and
cybersecurity [SEI 2012].
CMU/SEI-2016-SR-027 | SOFTWARE ENGINEERING INSTITUTE | CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY 85
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