Watts Humphrey

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Watts S. Humphrey (1927) is an American software engineer, key thinker in the discipline of software engineering, and is often called the father of software quality.

1 Biography
2 Work
- 2.1 Software Engineering Institute
3 See also
4 Publications
5 References
6 External links

Biography

Watts Humphrey recieved a Bachelor of Science in Physics at the University of Chicago, a Master of Science in Physics at the Illinois Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration back in Chicago at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

In the late 1960s, Humphrey headed the IBM software team that introduced the first software license. Humphrey was previously a Vice President at IBM.

Humphrey is a Fellow of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). He has received a Honorary Doctor of Software Engineering from the Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. In 2003, Watts Humphrey was awarded the National Medal of Technology.^[1] The Watts Humphrey Software Quality Institute in Chennai, India is named after him.

Work

Software Engineering Institute

Humphrey's main contribution to the software engineering processes resides in the creation of the Software Process Program at Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute. His work as a director of that program later generated the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). After that, he created the Personal Software Process (PSP) and the Team Software Process (TSP). His personal goal was always to improve quality and productivity in software development and to ease what was called the "Software Crisis".^[2]

Watts S. Humphrey founded the Software Process Program of the Software Engineering Institute(SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University in 1986, and served as director of that program until the early 1990s. This program aimed at the understanding and the managing of the software engineering process because this is where big and small organizations or individuals encounter the most serious difficulties and where, thereafter, lies in the best opportunity for significant improvement.

Publications

Humphrey is the author of several books, including "Managing the Software Process", "A Discipline for Software Engineering", "The Team Software Process" and:

1997. Managing Technical People - Innovation, Teamwork and Software Process. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
2001. Winning with Software: An Executive Strategy. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
2005. PSP, A Self-Improvement Process for Software Engineers. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
2006. TSP, Leading a Development Team. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
2006. TSP, Coaching Development Teams. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.