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Nominations Sought for 2018 IEEE/SEI Watts S. Humphrey SPA Award

Nominations Sought for 2018 IEEE/SEI Watts S. Humphrey SPA Award
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February 13, 2018—Nominations are now open until June 1, 2018 for the 2018 IEEE Computer Society/SEI Watts S. Humphrey Software Process Achievement Award (Watts S. Humphrey Award). Since 1994, the SEI and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society have cosponsored the award, which recognizes outstanding achievements in improving an organization's ability to create and evolve high-quality software-dependent systems.

Award recipients join an elite group including last year’s winners Raytheon, and Nationwide IT. Winners receive an engraved plaque commemorating their achievement. Presentation of the award will take place at a practitioner and researcher community event at which the winner will be invited to speak. In addition, the SEI will publish a technical report produced by the winner describing their accomplishments, experiences, and lessons learned.

Past winners of the Watts S. Humphrey Software Process Achievement Award include

  • 2016 Nationwide
  • 2016 Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems
  • 2009 Infosys Technologies Limited
  • 2006 Productora de Software S.A. (PSL)
  • 2004 IBM Australia Application Management Services
  • 2002 Wipro Technologies
  • 1999 Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, Directorate of Aircraft, Software Division, Test Software and Industrial Automation Branches
  • 1998 Advanced Information Services, Inc.
  • 1997 Raytheon Systems Company
  • 1995 Raytheon Electronic Systems1994 Goddard Space Flight Center: Software Engineering Laboratory

The award, named for Watts S. Humphrey, recognized as the “Father of Software Quality,” honors achievements in any type of process-improvement activity. These achievements need not have been based on a specific framework, model, or body of software engineering principles, practices, techniques, or methods.

Humphrey followed his long career at IBM with an equally distinguished career at the SEI, where he served from 1986 until his death in 2010. Humphrey worked to improve the profession of software engineering by focusing on software quality, and he helped lay the groundwork for what would eventually become the Software Capability Maturity Model (CMM), the Personal Software Process (PSP), the Team Software Process (TSP) and the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). In 2005, Humphrey received the National Medal of Technology for his work in software engineering.

This year’s award subcommittee, chaired by the SEI’s Julia Mullaney, comprises number of distinguished experts in the field. The subcommittee will evaluate nominations against award criteria designed to ensure the work is significant, measured, sustained, and creates shared improvement. Distinguished members of the subcommittee also include:

Vice Chair
Gerd Hoefner, Siemens Technology India

Voting Members
Jens Heidrich, Fraunhofer IESE
Gerd Hoefner, Siemens Technology India
Neal Mackertich, Raytheon Company
Ramakrishnan Muthuraman, Gnosys Process Consultancy Pvt. Ltd.
Clas Neumann, SAP Labs Network
Ed Weller, Integrated Productivity Solutions, LLC

Non-voting Members
Mike Konrad, Software Engineering Institute
Dieter Rombach, Fraunhofer IESE

Humphrey Award Coordinator
Michele Falce, Software Engineering Institute

To learn more about the Watts S. Humphrey Software Process Award, please visit http://www.sei.cmu.edu/process/casestudies/processawards/.

To nominate an individual or group, please visit http://www.computer.org/web/awards/humphrey-spa.

Please review the submissions guidelines carefully. Remember: nominations are due no later than June 1, 2018.

The award nomination period extends through June 1, 2018.