Essence

Software Engineering was the theme of a 1968 conference in Garmisch, Germany, with at the time the leading computer scientists and methodologists in the world. That meeting is considered being the beginning of software engineering and by now we have developed the discipline over 50 years.

The first course in software engineering is the most critical. Education must start from an understanding of the heart of software development, from familiar ground that is common to all software development endeavors. This book is an in-depth introduction to software engineering that uses a systematic, universal kernel to teach the essential elements of all software engineering methods.

Many of the creators of Essence are also members of Agnostic Agile. Thus the need for Essence and its structure, elements and properties is based on the same values/needs shared with the founders and other members of Agnostic Agile.

In a recent blog by Fujitsu’s Rob Devlen, Fujitsu and IJI go Agile with Essence, Devlen describes how Ivar Jacobson International (IJI) worked with Fujitsu to create a workshop to build an understanding of Agile for their top 100 executives and senior managers in the EMEIA region. The blog article describes how we created that interactive workshop with them, facilitated the session and the results obtained. In this article we’ll show you a flavour of some of the content.

A series of examples and case studies on how people have used the Scrum Essentials cards to benefit their teams and improve how they work.

The way we have developed software over the years has followed a zig-zag path. Early on, we had no prescribed way of working, but we created code. In the 1970s, structured methods became popular, followed by object/component methods from the mid-1980s through 2000. These were technical practices. After that, we adopted Agile methods which focused on human practices or social engineering. Now we are in the Scaling Agile phase, which includes both human and technical practices.

Written by Dr. Ivar Jacobson, Paul E. McMahon and Roland Racko Over the years, collective experience of the authors has revealed many questions on the SEMAT and Essence initiative. To bring clarity of the initiative to our readers, the authors have answered 24 of the most common questions.

An in-depth introduction to software engineering that uses a systematic, universal kernel called Essence to teach essential elements of all software engineering methods

Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, invited Dr Ivar Jacobson to his podcast to speak about his work defining the essence of software engineering.

This instructional guide provides a brief introduction to the Alphas and presents seven different games that can be played with the Alpha State Cards by software development teams.