Software Engineering Institute

A number of organizations are successfully applying the Spiral Development Model (SDM) and finding it valuable in addressing such challenges as rapid development, COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) software integration, new technologies, and product line management. However, other organizations have experienced difficulties with spiral development—due to over-relaxed controls, underestimated risks, existing sequential development policies, inflexible financing mechanisms, ingrained cultures, and confusion about what spiral development is and how to apply it. To attack these problems, a workshop was held February 9-11, 2000, at the University of Southern California under the sponsorship of its Center for Software Engineering (CSE) and the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) of Carnegie Mellon University. Work groups at the workshop recommended specific actions aimed at building and spreading a culture for the SDM community. These can be described as defining, improving, promoting, and studying SDM, educating about SDM, adapting to SDM, and enhancing teamwork. This report summarizes the workshop and presents its recommendations.