Most every organization, at one time or another, has gone through the experienced the pain of a Project Post-Mortem. People have come to expect that post-mortems are nothing more than forums for exacting retribution and venting frustration. In terms of return on investment (ROI), post-mortems usually are very low since little of value is learned. While Management may be satisfied that a post-mortem was held, the organization continues to make the same mistakes on the next project because nothing was learned and nothing was changed.

Thankfully, there is a better way. Developed and refined by Norm Kerth, Project Retrospectives are a much more effective way to glean “wisdom” from projects.

Post-mortems are meetings that typically occur with no planning, no preparation, are led by a project team member who may or may not have good meeting facilitation skills, and may take only an hour or two at most.

Project Retrospectives on the other hand, are “events”. Here are some key attributes:

• They are planned

• People come prepared

• An experienced facilitator plans the events and leads the discussion

• Retrospectives typically take 2 -3 days (yes, days)

By making an investment in learning from the past, organizations can significantly reduce the likelihood that they will repeat the same mistakes on the next project.

Registration fee includes comprehensive course notes, and refreshments

Speaker: Steven R. Rakitin, President, Software Quality Consulting, Inc.
Web: www.swqual.com, E-mail: info@swqual.com, Phone: 508.529.4282

Audience: All software project team members and project managers...

Outline:

Introduction	Day One Objectives
Typical Post-mortems	Create Safety Exercise
Why Post-mortems often fail	Defining Success Exercise
Facts and Artifacts
Project Retrospectives
Business Motivation	Day Two Objectives
Getting Started…	Project Timeline Exercise
Mining for Gold Exercise
Summary and Action Plan

Speaker Bio:    Steven R. Rakitin has 30 years experience as a software engineer and software quality manager in a broad range of industries. He has written several papers on the subject of software quality and published a book titled: Software Verification & Validation for Practitioners and Managers. He was one of the authors of the original IEEE Standard for Software Quality Assurance Plans (IEEE-STD-730). He received a BSEE from Northeastern University and an MSCS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has earned certifications from the American Society for Quality (ASQ) as a Software Quality Engineer (CSQE) and Quality Auditor (CQA). He is a member of the IEEE Computer Society, the ASQ Software Division, and is on the Editorial Review Board for the ASQ Journal Software Quality Professional. He presents tutorials and workshops at conferences worldwide. As President of Software Quality Consulting Inc., he helps companies establish a more predictable software development process. His e-mail address is info@swqual.com

Decision (Run/Cancel) Date for  this Courses is Tuesday, March 17, 2006

Course Fee Schedule:

On-line Registration and Payment

This course has been cancelled.  Please contact office if you have any questions.

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