A Technical History of the SEI

Introduction to Management
When the SEI was established, the DoD and defense contractors generally understood that certain
software engineering practices produced consistent results. Unfortunately, those practices were
not documented or widely recognized. Software project planning and tracking, version control,
configuration management, and quality management were not well understood in the context of
the overall management of a software development project. To complicate matters, software tools
supporting such activities were often home-grown, with idiosyncrasies peculiar to the organization.
Often, the choice of tool would dictate how processes were defined and how they interacted.
Nevertheless, there were examples of successful software development programs and a growing
body of literature to support the concept that software could be managed by a process [Boehm
1981].
Management of the Software Process
The DoD identified the management of the software component of programs as a major problem
area [DoD 1982], and the DoD STARS strategy envisioned a managed process well supported by
automated tools [Druffel 1983]. Consequently, the SEI strategic plan identified the management
of the software development process—by both the DoD program offices and the defense contractors—as
a fundamental activity [Barbacci 1985]. Several companies, most notably IBM, had mature
efforts aimed at management of the software development process that had proven effective
[Humphrey 1985].
The SEI recruited a retiring executive from IBM who had been instrumental in creating and managing
the IBM efforts and initiated work on the process management framework in 1986. Shortly
thereafter, the Air Force program manager asked the SEI to conduct a study of “best practices.”
The SEI used this customer interest to drive the process management framework effort. Several
workshops were conducted with leading software professionals in the DoD, defense industry,
commercial industry, and academia to elicit a consensus on practices that consistently led to improved
software development. Eighteen practices were identified. To help organizations determine
how well their work stacked up against these practices, the SEI produced a Maturity Questionnaire
[Zubrow 1994]. Response to this questionnaire was overwhelmingly positive, both from
the DoD and the defense industry.
Initially, the questionnaire identified 18 key process areas and a five-level model of organizational
maturity based on the implementation of the process areas. As the community began to adopt
these ideas, they expressed the need for a more precise definition of the practices and the model.
In response, the SEI developed the Capability Maturity Model for Software 15 [Paulk 1993], published
a book, and created several reports on managing the software process to help community
members evaluate their process management capability and proactively take steps to improve
15 Paulk, M. C.; Curtis, B.; Chrissis, M. B., et al. Capability Maturity Model for Software (CMU/SEI-91-
TR-24). Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 1991. No longer available.
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