Management of Software Development

Abstract

Development of software is well known as a very difficult management problem. When the software is a part of a complex telemetry system, the management problem becomes particularly complex; particularly if the software is not well defined before implementation begins. This paper discusses some of the problem areas in software management with particular emphasis on the requirements and design stages. In a telemetry system development effort, the system designers must decompose system requirements into requirements on various subsystems. This process is particularly apt to lead to software requirements which are not well defined, impossible to meet or inappropriate for the hardware on which it is implemented. This paper addresses methods of performing and managing this type of software development.