Lessons from Practices and Standards in Safety-Critical and Regulated Sectors

Abstract

Many years of effort have been expended by experienced practitioners and academic experts in developing software engineering standards. Organizations should see it as a positive advantage—rather than as a costly negative necessity—when they are required to develop software to a recognized standard. A genuine, constructive program of measures to ensure compliance with an objective standard will achieve development process improvements that would otherwise be difficult to motivate and bring to fruition. This chapter provides an overview and comparison of a number of software engineering standards specific to safety-critical and regulated sectors. It goes on to describe implications and benefits that flow from these standards. Informed by current software engineering research, suggestions are made for effective practical application of the standards, both at individual project and at organizational level.