4. The contribution of software engineering to IT project management

To put the concepts of dynamics and agility into perspective, let's take a brief look at what was expected of what came to be known as "software engineering" at two famous conferences (NATO science commitee, Garmisch, Germany, October 7-11, 1968, and Rome, Italy, October 27-31, 1969).

Software engineering" is the engineering science concerned with the scientific processes involved in building and maintaining software, and with the "material" of this construction: firstly, the programs themselves, the files and databases, the parameterization scripts needed to run the program, and then everything that revolves around them: specification of needs and requirements of future users, design specification, testing, documentation for maintainers and technical support, as well as user documentation.

The aim of software engineering is to maximize...