We are in the early stage of transition from the age of software engineering to the post software engineering era. An age is a period of history in which people are held together by a worldview and a method of inquiry derived from that worldview. A change of age asserts that our worldview and our methods are both undergoing fundamental and profound transformation.

In the software industry, the passing age is software engineering wherein software design is considered a branch of engineering. The worldview is software as a machine. Today’s prevailing software development methodologies, Rational Unified Process (RUP) or Agile methodologies, like any conventional branch of engineering, are characterized as user requirement driven by specifying and implementing user requirements. The software-as-machine view and resulting methods, heavy or light software processes, are not successful in the present day: a low success rate of 34% (Standish 2004), high intellectual rework wherein 80% of development costs go to identifying and correcting defects (NIST 2003), and high waste as evidenced by the yearly tab for failed and troubled software, which is $60 billion to $70 billion in the U.S. alone (IEEE Spectrum 2003).

The worldview of the post software engineering era is software as a living system. Developing software can be likened to growing a tree. The new methodology, called Unified Content, is characterized as business driven by specifying and implementing business requirement. Rather than being iterative, incremental implementing user requirement characterized in all methodologies today, the UC methodology is a process of irreversible growth in building models. Changing our methods and techniques without changing our worldview is orthodox, more of the same. Only by changing our view of software can we look away from the “orthodox novel” to the “emergent novelty.” Software design in this new age is neither planned (waterfall) nor evolutionary (Agile) but a process of emergence and growth. Growing a tree is not iterative but emergent process (regarding software features) and yet deterministic (regarding budget, schedule and objective). The new economics is near zero rework as opposed to about 50% of resources spent on intellectual rework in today’s methodologies. Resultantly, the new design anticipates a sharp increase in success rate, cost reduction, and quality.

This website serves to introduce Unified Content software development methodology derived from a software-as-living-systems view. It is our hope that the website will help people and organizations to transform their thinking; to act with more wisdom and more confidence; and to become more life affirming, participative, and enjoyable. If you are responsible for investing or budgeting, up-to-specification and on-time delivery, quality processes, technology and people, or high-quality artifacts, UCSoft can provide the unique knowledge and skills you need to excel in this increasingly competitive arena. There is no reason for your organization to settle for being just another player in the game—UCSoft can reveal and maximize your hidden potential to compete and to stand out from the competition.