A Technical History of the SEI

Preface
This report chronicles the technical accomplishments of the Software Engineering Institute and its
impact on the Department of Defense software community, as well as on the broader software engineering
community. While it is historical in nature, the report is not a history per se; the focus is
on institutional technical accomplishments. While the SEI is nothing without the people who
make up the institution, the focus is on technical accomplishments rather than on the people who
produced those accomplishments.
Indeed, this report was motivated in part by the passing of two senior members of the SEI staff,
both SEI Fellows, within 18 months of one another. With their passing and the retirement of several
others came the realization that corporate memory of early accomplishments that led to the
current work would forever be lost. This led to the initiation of this project. However, the purpose
of this report is to focus on the accomplishments, leaving the discussion of the people involved
and their contributions for another time.
The technical accomplishments of the SEI are interwoven with the technical developments in the
broader software engineering community. In almost every case, the SEI was influenced by ideas
and collaborative participation from industry, university, and government people. In many cases,
the broader community was also influenced by SEI activities and developments. Just as software
engineering is not driven by a waterfall development model, neither was there a linear interaction
between the SEI and the software engineering community. It was, and is, truly interactive. Inside
the institution, it is equally difficult to attribute credit. Ideas are proposed in brainstorming sessions,
and filtered and refined by members of the staff. Therefore, rather than attribute specific
work to individuals, this report focuses on the technical accomplishments while attempting to
acknowledge the sources of influence. Attribution will follow the accepted practice of citing references
that can be found at the end of each section. Even that device is inadequate because so
much of the influence was through workshops and verbal interactions.
This report is intended for readers with varying technical backgrounds whose expertise is not in
software engineering but who are interested in the SEI technical contributions and their lineage.
Acronyms will be spelled out and technical jargon will be avoided to the extent possible. Software
engineers and students will find useful references in understanding how ideas evolved, as long as
they understand that the report is necessarily SEI-centric and does not always capture parallel developments
elsewhere.
Organization
The report is organized by technical areas. The technical work and accomplishments are described
in the following chapters, which are organized into areas of importance to the mission of the SEI:
Real-Time Embedded Systems Engineering, Education and Training, Management, Security,
Software Engineering Methods, Architecture, and Forensics. These are not mutually exclusive
categories, and, indeed, there are intersections and overlaps.
CMU/SEI-2016-SR-027 | SOFTWARE ENGINEERING INSTITUTE | CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
Distribution Statement A: Approved for Public Release; Distribution is Unlimited
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