Keynote 2

Summary form only given. In the 2006 report of the SEI International Process Research Consortium we identified nine driving forces which are shaping the need for research into software process and product. These were the increased push for value-add, business diversification, technology change, systems complexity, product quality, regulation, security and safety, and globalization. Four research themes were developed of which only one will be explored in this presentation. In the theme entitled "The relationships between processes and product qualities" the authors document some twenty six broad research questions which remain as challenges for the software engineering research community. This presentation outlines research carried out since 2006 which addresses some of these questions. In particular the presentation explores research into the meaning of software product quality, the performance quality prediction of heterogeneous systems of systems, and the relationships between defined software process and enacted process. Examples of conclusions which can be drawn are that our research should no longer benchmark development process productivity without consideration of product quality. In another example it shows that we will need to evaluate heterogeneous SOA architectures in the context of processes and workflows. In order to achieve significant progress it is argued that we need to pursue our research at a much deeper and inclusive level of understanding than often seen in the past in terms of process and process / product relationships.