Celebrating success
Даррен Далчер · Software Process Improvement and Practice · 2007
Dear Reader, We always remind developers and managers to take time to celebrate success. This issue marks the end of the fifth volume of SPIP that we have edited, giving us a number of reasons to celebrate the success of SPIP. The SPI community is alive and well with many new articles and interest that is fast expanding beyond the software community to encompass new domains. SPIP has had another productive year. In fact, this year, we have some new records to celebrate. Over the six issues, we published 53 articles spanning more than 600 pages. Both figures are new records for the Journal. Looking back over the last 5 years, we have made tremendous progress in bringing together the best articles and authors for the benefit of the SPI community. The message is clear, the process community is alive and well and keen to share lessons, ideas, and perspectives. We hope to continue serving the community in the coming years. This year we had a good balance of research and practice articles reflecting many developments within the discipline. The topics of process and process improvement appear in many conferences and discussions. In the current volume we have attempted to focus on new ideas and practices in SPI. This issue for example, features industrial experience in applying SPI. The field of software process is exciting and is still in rapid transition. As the complexity of systems being developed increases, so must the complexity of the processes that are being used to create these systems. New methods and approaches for developing, testing, and managing software projects and processes are evolving. Meanwhile, new research increasingly draws upon ideas from other disciplines such as finance, economics, project management, organisational behaviour, and cognitive science to address the fundamental issues of developing better quality software at higher levels of productivity and reliability. We plan to bring you the best of this research and to be inclusive of different development methods and approaches, drawing upon research from other fields. We also intend to feature developments in both academic and practitioner-oriented perspectives to provide an educated and reflective discussion of best practices coupled with new research findings. Moreover, we aim to continue to broaden the scope by looking inwards as well as by extending and reaching out to other domains. The purpose of the Journal is to keep you updated about new developments, ideas, and experiences in the software process area. Over the coming year, SPIP will endeavour to reflect the new trends and to solicit new articles that offer a good coverage of many of the pertinent topics and new innovations. As a result, you will be seeing larger issues combining regular experience and research articles alongside specially solicited volumes keeping you informed of new developments that are likely to impact the process arena. In addition, we will be having short articles where leaders in the field present their perspective on the state of the industry and current research trends. Moreover, we will necessarily expand the scope of the kind of research and practice we present to you with the aim of enriching your perspective and making this Journal of greater value to you. Our success in 2007 was owing to our readers and contributors. As we move into 2008, we hope to continue to deliver worthwhile observations, insights, and practical experience reports. By looking beyond the immediate boundaries of our discipline we will hopefully, be able to extend our knowledge base and become more effective at improving current practices. We thank the authors and reviewers for enabling us to share this wealth of knowledge, and look forward to the new expanded coverage in the forthcoming issues of SPIP. We are always on the lookout for fresh insights and for ideas about exploring new domains, trends or developments. If you can identify new areas or perspectives we encourage you to get in touch with the editors. If you have any feedback or thoughts we would be delighted to hear from you. We look forward to another successful year in 2008.