Carnegie Mellon's software development studio: a five year retrospective

The Software Development Studio is the centerpiece of Carnegie Mellon's Master of Software Engineering Curriculum. It represents 40 per cent of the course units students spend in the program. The Studio has continuously evolved since its prototype in the spring and summer of 1990. The lessons learned about organization, projects, and other issues are the subject of the paper. The use of a well established development process, a matrix organization, and one on one mentoring give the highest return on investment. This is being written as the seventh class of students prepare to enter the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Master of Software Engineering (MSE) Program. The program is a joint effort of the School of Computer Science and the Software Engineering Institute at CMU. The curriculum for the MSE has continuously evolved since its inception, though there have been no major changes for two years. The concept based core curriculum, representing 30 per cent of the units required for the degree, is documented by D. Garlan et al. (1995). The prototype offering of the Studio course, 40 per cent of the units students take, is described by J.E. Tomayko (1991). The paper presents the lessons learned in the five 16 month Studio offerings since then. Twelve projects, some of which were continuations of previous projects, staffed by just under 70 students, form the database from which the information presented is drawn.