Industry and academia: can they agree on best practice within software engineering?

In 1999 the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) released a document entitled "Harmonization of Professional Standards" (Mitchell et al., 1998) which had been developed by a small working group within the Technical Committee for Education (IFIP TC3). The purpose of the document was to set out what could become an international standard for professional practice in information technology. The IFIP Harmonization document highlights six areas for consideration with regard to professional standards. These are: 1) ethics of professional practice, 2) established body of knowledge, 3) education and training, 4) professional experience, 5) best practice and proven methodologies, and 6) maintenance of competence. The panel has been requested to consider the area of best practice and address the following (in particular with regard to software engineering): 1) recognition of existing proven examples of best practice within industry, 2) transfer of information on best practice between industry and academia and vice versa, 3) the definition of mechanisms for identifying and proving best practice, and 4) to identify roles for national and international bodies and the actions they should be undertaking to advance best practice in software engineering.