It’s with a great sense of responsibility and complete humility that I present
this book. After two years of researching and writing, I feel I’ve only
scratched the surface. I hope that what I share and have experienced will
help you in your professional endeavors.
My passion is safety and making its realization practical. As early as high
school, I wrote a column for the local newspaper on safety tips, extensively
researching (as much as one can in rural America before the Internet):
bathtub safety, tractor safety, and electrical safety, among others. In my
senior year of high school, I competed in the state persuasive speech
competition—the subject was seatbelt safety. My desire to promote safety
led me to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and is the primary
motivation behind this book.
Software is only one link in the overall safety chain. Yet, it is an
important link and one which grows more vital each year. As software
becomes more prevalent and is used in more critical ways, its risks and
contributions to safety increase. At the same time that the risk due to
software is increas ing, the business models of many companies seem to be
shifting—more is expected with less, schedule becomes king, and software
engineers are treated like pieces on a game board that can be randomly
reorganized.
This book is intended to be a tool for those caught in the churn of the
industry. Perhaps you are a systems engineer or manager, a software
manager, a software engineer, a quality assurance engineer, or a student
striving to learn from the experiences of others. You want to do an
outstanding job but are overwhelmed with schedule and budget pressures. I
hope that this book, based on the last 20 years of my life in the aviation
industry, will help you as you pursue quality and excellence