Software management through improved programming technology

Coming as I do from a large organization which competes for programming contracts and then performs them on a for-profit basis, the need to improve our management skills is especially apparent. In general, as we in the programming business discover how to manage contracts of a given size and complexity, the state of the art allows us to tackle even bigger and more difficult ones. And while some of our problems are those common to any sort of large project management, at least three key ones are peculiar to the programming project because of the way programming has been allowed (and even encouraged) to be done. First, we permit programs to be treated as private property by programmers. While the concept of independent development and ownership of a program by a programmer may have been valid twenty years ago, it has little value in multiple-program system with large numbers of interfaces. A program or program system is a group product and should be produced in a way which allows and encourages maximum knowledge of it by each person involved. Furthermore, the management responsible for its development should be able to determine its status directly and not depend on the programmer's description of his progress on an “invisible product”.