Software Engineering Institute

These are the course materials for PSP for the 21st Century, a modular, flexible introduction to using Watts Humphrey's Personal Software Process (PSP). The PSP was first introduced publicly in Humphrey's 1994 book, A Discipline for Software Engineering, and as the title suggests, the intent was to demonstrate the power and value of disciplined software engineering methods at the individual developer level. The current materials represent a fresh take on the PSP for the modern software developer working a quarter-century later in a more agile world—short modules, updated terminology, and some flexibility in learning the methods.

This current version of PSP training breaks the discipline into the following skills:

• following a defined, measured process
• estimating work consistently
• reviewing work products effectively
• documenting detailed design

Each skill is imparted through a "block" of lessons that introduce the components of the skill. Each block contains several modules, which include lecture slide decks covering each component topic, often a supporting Word document containing notes for the instructor, and a recommended programming exercise intended to provide hands-on practice in using the component skill.