Organizational badge collecting
James W. Moore, Roy Rada · Communications of the ACM · 1996
sharing standards T he badge of ISO 9000 [1] conformance is worn by 95,000 organizations around the world.To them it's an important accomplishment in a highly competitive marketplace.This badge is just the first of a chest-full of badges serious software developers will soon be wearing as they complete their rites of passage toward establishing software engineering as a profession rather than an ideal.The phenomenon of badging is notable in its own right.The mere act of applying a name to a previously abstract concept or principle marks it as something different from past practice.As software development evolves toward the status of an engineering profession, steps along the way will be marked by the creation of named practices or principles-badges-that organizations and individuals earn and display.As our body of knowledge expands and becomes institutionalized, the number of badges will multiply.We will know we have achieved professional status when we no longer need to wear the badges-when such a status is universally recognized.ISO 9000 is just the first of the badges; we can already see others on the way.This column describes some. Convergence of Software Life-Cycle Standards