IEEE Computer Society/SEI SPA Award Nomination and Award Process

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Overview
Award Criteria    |    Eligibility Requirements
Award Schedule    |    Nomination Material
Award Conditions    |    Evaluation Process
Award Recipient Support Process    |    Resubmission
For More Information

The IEEE Computer Society/SEI Software Process Achievement (SPA) Award is a non-competitive award offered annually. More than one award may be given in a year if more than one nominee meets the award criteria. If no nominee meets the award criteria in any year, no award will be given. It is expected that, on average, there will be one SPA Award each year.

Award recipients receive an engraved commemorative plaque and make one or more presentations at appropriate practitioner and researcher community events. Award recipients also produce an SEI Technical Report describing their accomplishments, experiences, and lessons learned. The SEI helps produce this report and pays the authors an honorarium of $1500 to partially offset the expense of preparing their presentation and report.

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Overview

The Software Process Achievement Award is given to software process improvement professionals to recognize the excellence of their work. The award may be given to individuals or groups who work in a variety of contexts; the individual or group must meet the eligibility requirements.

To nominate an individual or group, you must complete the nomination material. In your nomination, you must specify the nominee, describe the nominee's software process improvement work, and make a case for why the nominee deserves the award with respect to one or more target organizations (i.e., the organizations affected by the nominee's work). The nomination material must be accompanied by letters, signed by people with the appropriate responsibility and authority, certifying agreement to several award conditions.

Nominations must be submitted to the Process Achievement Award Coordinator by November 1st.

Nominations are evaluated by an Award Committee consisting of senior, knowledgeable, experienced software process improvement professionals.

The first step in the evaluation process is for the Award Committee to review the nomination material to assure that the nominee satisfies the award criteria to at least a minimal degree. Nominees that pass this initial screening are then evaluated on the basis of additional information gathered through focused interactions with the nominee and others. A positive decision requires that the nominee satisfies the award criteria to an exceptional degree.

In the case of a negative decision, the Award Committee explains the reasons and a resubmission, addressing the deficiencies, may be made in a subsequent year.

The award schedule is designed to provide recognition of an award recipient's accomplishments and dissemination of its experiences and lessons learned, throughout the relevant research and practitioner communities. An award recipient support process is used to assure timely recognition, a high-quality SEI Technical Report, and effective, high-quality presentations within the practitioner and researcher communities.

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Award Criteria

The nominee's software engineering or process improvement work must, to an exceptional degree, be significant, measured, sustained, and shared.

To be significant, the work must have a demonstrated impact on the target organizations’ software-related processes. Although the work’s focus will be upon the target organizations’ software development and maintenance processes, it should also consider, as pertinent, the impact on the target organizations’ management, workforce, and system development and maintenance processes.

To be measured, the work must include the collection of data used to guide the work and clearly demonstrate its impact. Concrete improvement goals, factors, and metrics must be defined. The work must involve assessing the cause-and-effect relationship between changes and their impact.

To be sustained, the work must lead to a continuing impact on the target organizations’ software-related projects. In particular, the work should result in well-documented support for effective, efficient, accurate process performance and continuous software engineering or process improvement.

To be shared, the insights, experiences, and proven practices stemming from the work must have been made available beyond the target organizations. This could, for example, be to other parts of larger organizations within which the target organizations are sub-units. It could, additionally or alternatively, be throughout software engineering or process improvement communities in which the nominee and target organizations participate.

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Eligibility Requirements

An SPA Award may be presented to nominees that meet the following requirements:

Nominees are most often employees of an organization that produces, supports, enhances, or provides software-dependent systems (e.g., the 1999 award recipient was Test Software and Industrial Automation Branches at Tinker Air Force Base).

However, the nominee's work may have been undertaken in other contexts: for example, within an organization that produces, supports, enhances, or provides software engineering or process improvement-related services, or within an association supporting improvement-community activities. In these latter cases, the target organizations will be different from the nominee's organization.

Because software engineering and process improvement are normally group activities, a nominee is usually a team of professionals. However, to recognize work within small organizations, or within organizations that do not formally define a software engineering or process improvement-related team, a nominee may be an individual or a small informal group of individuals.

The nominee's organization and the target organizations may be for-profit, not-for-profit, or non-profit; may be industrial, academic, or government organizations or foundations; and need not be based in the United States

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Award Schedule

By November 1st

Nominating organizations send the nomination material, and the accompanying award condition certifications, to the Process Achievement Award Coordinator. Electronic submissions are preferred but must be in PDF format with a follow-up mailing of a copy of the award condition agreement letter bearing an original signature (alternative submission forms are discussed in frequently asked questions).

By the end of November

The Chair of the Award Committee reviews the nomination for compliance with the award's administrative requirements (e.g., the scope and length of the nomination material and delivery of the required statements regarding the award conditions).

If deficiencies are minor, the nominator is given the opportunity to correct them within one week. If there are major deficiencies, the Chair of the Award Committee will explain these to the nominator and invite them to correct them in a future resubmission.

By the end of March

The SPA Award Committee, using the evaluation process, makes an award decision. In the case of a negative decision, the Chair of the SPA Award Committee notifies the nominator and nominee and provides a detailed list of deficiencies and advice regarding a resubmission in the future.

In the case of a positive decision, an award proposal is sent to the IEEE Computer Society Award Committee and the Director of the SEI's Software Engineering Process Management Program for approval.

After an award proposal is approved

The Chair of the Award Committee and the award recipient work together, using the award recipient support process, to assure timely production of an effective, high-quality SEI Technical Report and effective, high-quality presentations within the practitioner and researcher communities.

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Nomination Material

The Nomination Material must contain an overview that consists of no more than two printed pages identifying the nominee, briefly describing the nominee's software process improvement-related work, and concretely demonstrating the work's impact and excellence. This overview must identify the following:

the nominee, the target organizations, and the nominee's relationship to the target organizations

the one-to-three individuals who will represent the nominee organization in any award-related activity

a point of contact for interactions between the Award Committee and both the nominating and nominee organizations

In addition, and most importantly with respect to demonstrating award-winning work, the overview must, with respect to the target organizations do the following:

define the goals for the nominee's improvement work
describe the work briefly and succinctly
provide evidence that the work met the goals and had a positive effect on the target organization
describe the work's direct impact and significance
describe the work's indirect impact and significance to the software process-improvement community at large

The overview must contain no more than ten additional pages of graphs, figures, tables, or other supporting data and notes, and be written in coherent, readable English.

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Award Conditions

A nomination must be seconded by a senior executive from the nominee's organization. If the target organizations are different from the nominee's organization, then the nomination must also be seconded by a senior executive from the each of the target organizations. In addition to seconding the nomination, these senior executives must agree to the following:

None of the data and information in the nomination material is proprietary or confidential.

On request, the nominee will provide additional detailed data and information regarding its software engineering or process improvement-related work. If any of the additional data and information is proprietary or confidential, it will be clearly marked as such.

If selected as an award recipient, the nominee will

make presentations at one or more practitioner-oriented and researcher-oriented conferences (normally the Software Engineering Process Group [SEPG] Conference and the International Conference on Software Engineering, respectively)
attend the researcher-oriented and practitioner-oriented conferences and, in particular, be available to receive the commemorative plaque when the award is announced at the first-occurring conference
prepare an SEI Technical Report in time for it to be published coincident with the second-occurring conference

All data and information which the SPA Award Committee uses as the basis for an award will be published in the SEI Technical Report, perhaps in some modified form mutually acceptable to the Chair of the SPA Award Committee and the award recipient.

If an on-site visit is required, travel expenses will be reimbursed by the nominee’s organization and/or the target organizations, with international travel reimbursed at least at business class airfare rates.

Committee members will not be required to return the nomination material, any non-proprietary or non-confidential material submitted in response to requests for additional information, or any non-proprietary or non-confidential material distributed during a site visit.

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Evaluation Process

For each nomination, the following steps are completed:

The Award Committee evaluates the degree to which the nominee's work satisfies the award criteria (i.e., is significant, measured, sustained and shared).

To evaluate whether the work is significant, the committee considers factors such as the breadth and depth of the work's impact throughout the target organizations (e.g., the number of projects that have benefited), and the certainty of the connection between the improvement work and achievement of the target organizations' performance goals (e.g., the strength of the link between the work and the process improvements)

To evaluate whether the work is measured, the committee considers factors such as the breadth to which the data demonstrate the improvement (e.g., the measurement of customer satisfaction factors as well as workforce capability-related factors), the depth of the data regarding the improvement (e.g., the consideration of defect containment as well as defect incidence data), and the use of well-defined measures to demonstrate the improvement (e.g., the definition of a concrete measure relating planned vs. actual project effort).

To evaluate whether the work is sustained, the committee considers factors such as the work's level of documentation (i.e., whether the results of the work are described in informal memoranda, internal reports, or organizational standards), the likelihood that the results achieved to date are permanent (e.g., as indicated by the support of senior executives), and the likelihood that there will be additional improvements in the future (e.g., as indicated by establishing procedures for collecting, considering, and implementing process improvement suggestions).

To evaluate whether the work is shared, the committee considers factors such as the degree to which the work has directly affected other organizations (e.g., the number of other organizations using methods influenced by the nominee's work) and the extent to which the nominee's work has impacted (or will impact) the nominee's local and global software process improvement communities (e.g., in terms of presentations in professional society meetings).

The Award Committee decides whether the nominee's work satisfies all of the award criteria to at least a minimal degree. If this is not the case, a detailed list of deficiencies is sent to the nominator and nominee accompanied by advice regarding a resubmission in the future. If the work at least minimally satisfies all of the award criteria, then a detailed list of questions and issues is sent to the nominee.

The Award Committee interacts with the nominee, and others as appropriate, to gather information addressing the questions and issues. If the SPA Award Committee feels it is necessary (and, to date, this has been the norm rather than the exception), they will conduct an on-site visit to interact with the nominee and personnel from the target organizations.

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Award Recipient Support Process

The following steps occur after an award proposal is approved by the IEEE Computer Society and the SEI:

The SPA Award Committee consults with the award recipient and identifies practitioner-oriented and researcher-oriented conferences most appropriate for recognizing the award recipient's accomplishments and promoting the award recipient's work (normally the Software Engineering Process Group Conference and the International Conference on Software Engineering, respectively).

The Chair of the SPA Award Committee arranges for the award to be presented at the first-occurring conference and for the award recipient to make presentations, as appropriate, at the conferences.

The SPA Award Committee identifies a member to mentor the award recipient in preparing high-quality conference presentations and a high-quality SEI Technical Report regarding the award recipient's “improvement journey” and the resulting insights, experiences, and proven practices.

At the first-occurring conference, a SPA Committee Member announces the award, presents the commemorative plaque, introduces the award recipient's presentation (if one is made at this conference), and promotes the award recipient's work and its implications for the conference attendees' work.

At the second-occurring conference, a SPA Committee Member announces the award, introduces the award recipient's presentation (if one is made at this conference), and promotes the award recipient's work and its implications for the conference attendees' work.

The Chair of the SPA Award Committee facilitates publication of the SEI Technical Report to coincide with the second-occurring conference and makes arrangements for delivery of the honorarium upon completion of the report.

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Resubmission

Achievements that have previously been recognized by an SPA Award may not be renominated. All other nominations may be resubmitted in any subsequent year. The Award Committee will provide a detailed list of a rejected nomination's deficiencies. A resubmission must address all of these deficiencies.

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For More Information

For more information about the IEEE Computer Society/SEI SPA Award, see:

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and Answers

Award Recipients

or contact

Process Achievement Award Coordinator
Software Engineering Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Phone: 412-268-7701
FAX: 412-268-5758
E-mail: award@sei.cmu.edu

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