Discovering System Dynamics in Software Engineering
- by Jim D. Hart
The software community is undergoing unprecedented change. Software companies are finding themselves in a globally competitive and complex world market, where customers are demanding faster, cheaper and better software solutions, where interoperability and functional complexity continue to stress the limits of software development capabilities, and where shelf life of technologies used to develop software is measured in months. Our current mechanistic worldview, while successful through most of the 20th century, is no longer adequate in such turbulent times.
In Discovering System Dynamics in Software Engineering: Foundations for the Software Learning Organization, Jim Hart articulates an alternative worldview that emphasizes leading and managing software companies as dynamic, open living systems.
Discovering System Dynamics provides a step-by-step approach in how any software organization can use causal loop diagramming to understand, communicate and solve chronic and interdependent problems that defy solutions using traditional techniques. The result will bring clarity and richer meaning to how we in the software community manage and improve our practices.
Click here to find out about how you can purchase this book.
For the reader
With nearly 100 figures and dozens of real-world examples specific to software engineering, the reader is challenged to develop their causal loop diagramming skills. The book concludes with two full chapters dedicated to illustrating a detailed methodology for how software companies can apply causal loop diagramming to solve perplexing situations. The many exercises and “Further Reading” sections in each chapter encourage readers to expand their systems thinking skills further and to work together in groups to collaborative solve more complex issues.
Software Process Dynamics, LLC
Helping our clients discover the dynamic structures that shape their software companies' success.
