A discipline for improving software productivity

Software is the key to the functionality needed by today's telecommunications products and services. Traditionally, the creation of software has been a labor-intensive endeavor. Because of the tremendous growth in software needs during the past two decades, continuing emphasis has been given to finding ways to improve software development productivity. AT&T Bell Laboratories established a program in 1986 with the goal of tripling software development productivity within three years, i.e., improving it by a factor of three. This paper describes the program's framework and the technology being pursued to respond to this challenge.