Understanding and Improving Technology Transfer in Software Engineering

This State-of-the-Art-Report summarizes the history of software engineering technology transfer and suggests ways to help us understand how to shorten the time between innovation and effective practice. It begins by examining earlier efforts to understand software-related technology transfer. Then we discuss the process of creating, evaluating, packaging and diffusing technology. Next, this report considers each of these four activities in more detail, to determine how each contributes to the success of the overall transfer. Finally areas that are ripe for further investigation are discussed.