Mark C. Paulk, Ph.D.

Mark is a Senior Systems Scientist at the IT Services Qualification Center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he works on best practices for sourcing and service management.

Mark is originally from Huntsville, Alabama. His father, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews continue to live in Alabama. He moved to Pittsbugh in 1987 to begin his career at Carnegie Mellon.

Mark's wife Kathy is a math teacher and tutor, with a background in mechanical engineering, supervisory process control, and industrial engineering. She is a native-born Pittsburgher. Their son, David, is a student at Shady Side Academy and a member of the swim team.

From 1987 to 2002, Mark worked at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon. Mark led the work on the Capability Maturity Model for Software, formalizing the software process maturity framework of Watts Humphrey. The Software CMM's staged representation describes how organizations can transform themselves by maturing their software engineering and management processes. Mark and Al Graydon were co-project editors for Part 2 (the Baseline Practices Guide) of ISO/IEC 15504 (Software Process Assessment) from 1992-1995. The capability dimension of the BPG was used in the Systems Engineering CMM and other CMM variants. Both staged and continuous representations are used in CMM Integration (CMMI). Mark's work at ITSqc centers around the eSourcing Capability Model for Service Providers, and its relationship to other best practice frameworks and quality philosophies. Mark’s personal research interests revolve around best practices, high maturity practices, statistical thinking, empirical research, and agile methods.

Mark received his PhD in industrial engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, his MS in computer science from Vanderbilt University, and his BS in mathematics and computer science from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, a Senior Member of the ASQ, and an ASQ Certified Software Quality Engineer.

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Mark's Software Process Bibliography

Mark's One-Page Biography

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Paulk Consulting LLC

Software Quality Principles

I drafted a piece on enduring principles of software process and quality that summarizes my general philosophy. It may be of some interest to those struggling to achieve performance excellence.