Good research ideas often arise from critical observation of inconsistencies between researchers? assumptions about software development and practical reality. This dissonance creates a kind of friction that can spark research ideas. This is the text for the Stevens Award Lecture on November 8, 2005. The Stevens Award was created to recognize outstanding contributions to the literature or practice of methods for software and systems development.

Preferred citation: Mary Shaw. Sparking Research Ideas from the Friction Between Doctrine and Reality, Stevens Lecture, Presented at the November 2005 joint meeting of IEEE"s 12th Working Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE) and IFIP"s 5th Working Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA.), pp. 11-14.