Concurrent software engineering: prospects and pitfalls

Software development remains largely a sequential, time-consuming process. Concurrent engineering (CE) principles have been more widely adopted and with greater success in hardware development. In this paper, a methodology for marrying CE principles to software engineering, or concurrent software engineering (CSE), is proposed. CSE is defined as a management technique to reduce the time-to-market in product development through simultaneous performance of activities and processing of information. A hierarchy of concurrent software development activity is defined, ranging from the simplest (within stage) to the most complex (across products and platforms). The information support activities to support this activity hierarchy are also defined, along with two key linking concepts-synchronicity and architectural modularity. Principles of CSE are developed for each level in the activity hierarchy. Research findings that establish limitations to implementing CE are also discussed.