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| Why UCSoft |
| UCSoft has unique insight into software and the software development process. This insight comes from three sources: |
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Firsthand data from a decade's experience in the field on all aspects of software application development projects, large or small, government or commercial; |
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A decade's theoretical research in complexity theory, systems thinking, the biology of cognition, the methodology of deductive science, foundational logic, and organizational theory to analyze the nature of business, software, and software development processes; and |
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In-depth study of the philosophy of technology, logic, and the fundamentals of engineering design to understand the criteria for success shared by all branches of engineering except software engineering. |
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This insight provides confidence in understanding why software engineering is a fallacy and how to bridge the gap between theory and practice to make software engineering as successful as conventional engineering. Using the ideas from hierarchy theory and foundational logic, the generic success criteria of all engineering disciplines is found. Using the methodology of deductive science, complexity theory, and systems thinking, a new theoretical foundation of software engineering capable of meeting the success criteria is found and translated into UCSoft’s requirements methodology, UCRequirement. With UCRequirement, developing software becomes a systematic, disciplined practice rather than guesswork. Organizations can quantify their business models and build loosely coupled software systems that evolve easily and align their businesses seamlessly. Accordingly, organizations have the capability to build software systems that are long lasting, extensible, and interoperable. Thanks to UCRequirement, organizations can now develop and implement software projects better, faster, and cheaper than ever before.
The software project success rate has steadily increased, from 16% in 1994 to 34% in 2004, according to Standish. The improvement is about 1.7% a year and appears to be linear, based on this small sample of data. The gradual improvement over the years is due to new programming languages, improved platforms and IDEs, new application development frameworks, etc. While these improvements have resulted in an increase in developers’ productivity, errors in requirements contribute to a consistent, absolute project failure rate that can’t be reduced. A ceiling, such as a 50% success rate, may exist. The only way to break the ceiling and to reach a success rate of 90% or higher is through disruptive innovation in requirements engineering. Throughout the history of the software industry, there has been no change in meeting this requirements challenge. Requirements definition and requirements elicitation methods remain the same, whereby ambiguous, incomplete, and contradictory requirements persist. From insight gained through years of research and field experience, UCSoft has discovered its innovation to address requirements challenge fundamentally. This confidence comes from UCSoft’s research breakthrough that connects theory with practice long missed in software, but not in traditional, engineering. |
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