Software Engineering Management: strategic choices in a new decade Barbara Farbey & Anthony Finkelstein University College London, Department of Computer Science, Gower St. London WC1E 6BT, UK {b.farbey|a.finkelstein}@ucl.ac.uk 1. ABSTRACT This paper discusses the strategic choices faced by software engineering managers and sketches a framework for analysing those choices. It draws attention to the idea of a software supply network which is novel in the context of software engineering and has significant implications for economics of software development. 2. INTRODUCTION The late 1990s saw a proliferation of technical and organisational advances in software engineering and in its application. For the software engineering manager these advances provide both a range of opportunities and a considerable challenge in defining a software strategy. That strategy must now include: - linking the software organisation’s work to corporate strategic priorities - understanding the market for the software organisation’s products, its nature and composition - defining the distinctive capabilities of his/her own software organisation vis a vis outside software houses and commercial off-the-shelf packages - understanding the nature of the networks of supply that feed software production. This is a more complex picture than it was in the early 90s. The fundamental issues regarding alignment with corporate strategy and achieving value for money have not changed. But the context and the options have changed, and the issues have broadened to include questions of purchasing and supply. At the very least, management needs a guide to the new options and issues and how they fit together. This paper assembles a framework for the development of such a guide. The framework places particular emphasis on the impact of software strategy on requirements management. 3. DEVELOPMENT OF THE FRAMEWORK The framework is built in three stages. The first stage identifies the strategic purpose of the system, its intended market, the type of system and the level of system requirements. Together these form the "strategic context" for development or acquisition. Working through this part of the framework locates the proposed system within a strategic "space". Associated with any specific location are a number of issues. These include anticipated strategic outcomes, the nature of the costs, benefits and risks, potential organisational advantages and disadvantages, options for requirements management and for managing the systems effort within the organisation. The framework thus has two dimensions, strategic purpose and issues, which we show as a matrix. Each cell in the matrix is, from the manager’s point of view, a potential issue to be resolved. The next step in the argument is to set out the contemporary options with respect to the systems development and acquisition process. Following Fine [4] the guiding principle here is that for optimal results, development and acquisition choices must be made together - as Fine has it "3-D concurrent design". We are arguing additionally here that 3-D concurrent design should be done within a strategic location which affects the logic of the choices, and extend the matrix appropriately. The third part of the framework emphasises the new thinking in supply chain management and organisational design. This special focus is interesting because there is now enough experience with outsourcing and COTS, and with the new ways of doing business, to address questions of inter-organisational relationships, contract design and supply network composition in the context of software engineering management. The last step is to glue the matrices together. The final matrix serves two purposes. First it is a map for managers to address the options and issues systematically, whilst maintaining sight of the whole "terrain". Second, it is a research framework which we will ourselves use to research and develop guidelines for managers to help them address the issues.