2. Rationale

The adoption of the NASA Engineering Network (NEN) Software Engineering Community of Practice site for NASA users promotes the continued development of strong engineering culture. The development, capture, and dissemination of software engineering best practices, examples, and lessons learned through the use of the NEN Software Engineering Community of Practice enable continuous improvement among the software engineers. The assignment of this responsibility to the Office of the Chief Engineer (OCE) assures that relevant software engineering assets and guidance materials are made available to the NASA Software Engineering community.   Funding for and maintenance of the NEN Software Engineering Community of Practice site is provided by the OCE, thus making it independent of Center and project resources.  Centers and projects still have a responsibility to utilize and occasionally share assets via the NEN Software Engineering Community of Practice site.

3. Guidance

Software engineering is a core capability and a key enabling technology for NASA's missions and supporting infrastructure ⁰⁸³.  The software community site covers topics such as software requirements, design, implementation, architecture, assurance, testing, training, tools, process improvement, best practices, software release, models and simulations, and software research and technology innovation. The NEN Software Engineering Community of Practice site is a distributed, peer-driven network of individuals, engaged in a specific discipline, who come together to share their collective knowledge and learn from one another. The software community at NASA is focused on the software engineering discipline. The NASA Office of the Chief Engineer (OCE) maintains Agency-wide process asset data and information, including applicable best practices on the NEN Software Engineering Community of Practice page.

Community members work together to identify common problems and explore solutions, and they often develop and implement best practices. Collective disciplines are identified by a shared passion for a subject, a shared level of practice within a discipline, and trust and willingness to solve problems collaboratively.

Collocated individuals within a discipline commonly share ideas or discuss work challenges. By extending localized interaction to an online, facilitated forum, community members benefit from exposure to a broader set of related information resources, access to a wider field of peer expertise, and expanded opportunities for knowledge sharing and collaboration. 

See also SWE-003 - Center Improvement Plans, 

3.1 NASA Engineering Network

The NASA Engineering Network (NEN) hosts the online environment where software engineering meets to discuss ideas, locate peers, find the latest industry news and events in the software engineering discipline, and access relevant documentation and resources ⁰⁴³.

Electronic documentation that is intuitive and highly searchable gives software engineers the ability to quickly find the information they need, allowing them to do their jobs more effectively. The Software Engineering Community of Practice page, accessible to NASA personnel on the NASA Engineering Network (NEN) supports this objective.

Current software Community of Practice capabilities are centered on a collection of information arranged hierarchically. Topics are searchable to help the user quickly locate content related to the user’s needs.

The software NASA Engineering Network (NEN) site was established and is managed to satisfy two primary goals.

1. Provide a repository of software engineering assets.
2. Encourage the sharing of these assets within the Agency.

The main types of information that reside on these sites include:

• Documents
• Handbooks
• Checklists
• Reports
• Presentations
• Proceedings
• Course materials
• Tools
• Worksheets
• Software catalogs
• Metrics repositories
• Videos
• Links
• Contact lists

The current NEN Software Engineering Community of Practice site is only available inside of NASA and is not available to the public.

3.2 Software Processes Across NASA (SPAN) - Process Asset Libraries

3.3 Additional Guidance

Additional guidance related to this requirement may be found in the following materials in this Handbook:

3.4 Center Process Asset Libraries

See the following link(s) in SPAN for process assets from contributing Centers (NASA Only). 

4. Small Projects

Small projects will find value in using the example, templates, tools, and best practices on their project.  

5. Resources

5.1 References

5.2 Tools

6. Lessons Learned

6.1 NASA Lessons Learned

No Lessons Learned have currently been identified for this requirement.

6.2 Other Lessons Learned

No other Lessons Learned have currently been identified for this requirement.