The Essence of Software Engineering: Applying the SEMAT Kernel

5. Providing More Details to the Kernel through Practices

The kernel captures the common ground that underlies all software engineering. As a software professional, the kernel helps you to understand the challenges you face; however, it does not tell you how to address these challenges. In simple cases, or when your team members are experienced, you can easily figure out what needs to be done. However, in more complex situations, you are likely to need more guidance.

As we saw in Chapters 1 and 2, Smith and the team used the kernel as a thinking aid to analyze and understand their problems. In this chapter we will see how they created a simple requirements elicitation practice to improve their way of working. This practice provides the details ...