Many software organizations lack discipline, credibility, and most importantly, predictability. As a result, it is difficult to accurately determine when software products will be released, the features these products will have, and their overall quality. Without knowing when products will be released, your organization may not be able to plan customer training and product promotions, your resource utilization across projects becomes difficult to manage, and customers may be unable to plan for introduction of your software into their organization. This sequence of three interactive workshops can help your organization delight your customers by delivering what you promised, in the timeframe you promised it, and with the level of quality your customers require.

Part I - Management’s Role in Achieving Predictable Software Development™ - An interactive ˝ day workshop for Senior Management

Date and Time: Tuesday, April 12; 8:30AM - Noon 

Location: Westin Hotel, 70 Third Avenue, Waltham, MA

A predictable software development process can significantly improve an organization’s ability to deliver quality software on time, to meet customer expectations, and to improve employee satisfaction. In order to become more predictable, Management must play an active role in changing the culture. This half-day workshop provides Managers and Executives with proven techniques they can use to help their organizations become more predictable. These techniques can help you make more effective use of scarce engineering resources, reduce the number of costly bug-fix releases, balance issues of quality, features, and schedule, as well as people, product, and process. As a direct result, you will learn how to under-commit and over-deliver, and thereby improve your bottom line.

Audience: Software Development Managers, SQA Managers, Sr. Executives, VPs, CEOs

Outline: This workshop is based on the book: Software Verification and Validation for Practitionersand Managers, 2nd edition, by Steven R. Rakitin. No text issued with Part I.

Topics covered include:

• Motivation

  •  What is a Predictable Software Development™ Process?

  •  Why is it important for my organization?

• Economics of Software Development

  •  Software Defect Cost Models

  •  Bug Fix Releases are not Free

• Balancing Quality, Features, and Schedule

• Estimating and Scheduling Best Practices

• Developing Accurate Estimating Skills

  • The Yellow Sticky Method

  • Management’s Role

• Balancing People, Process, and Product

• Software Development Best Practices

• Documenting your Software Development Process

  • Managing Customer Expectations

  • Dealing with People Issues

  • Management’s Role

• Summary and Action Plan

Part II - Building Realistic Project Schedules from Software Requirements - An interactive full-day workshop for Software Project Teams

Date and Time: Wednesday, April 13; 8:30AM - 4:30PM        

Location: Westin Hotel, 70 Third Avenue, Waltham, MA

The increasing demand for complex software coupled with the inability of many organizations to write clear, concise requirements results in increased time to market, increased rework, and lower quality products - all of which negatively impacts your company’s bottom line. Further, software project teams are often unable to accurately estimate and schedule the work they need to perform. As a result, Management frequently imposes delivery dates for new products. With the end date given, the project team is then forced to “schedule backwards”. Schedules developed in this manner are always unrealistic since the project team must estimate task duration based on time available rather than time required. Since most companies provide little or no training in writing requirements, task estimating and project scheduling, it’s not surprising that software projects are frequently delivered late, with fewer features than were promised, and with too many bugs. Many companies over-commit and under-deliver.

To address this problem organizations need to learn how to: (1) write better requirements, (2) more accurately estimate tasks based on those requirements, (3) develop accurate, realistic schedules based on their estimates, and (4) deliver what was promised on time.

This full day workshop provides the skills your organization needs to learn how to under-commit and over-deliver. The morning session is devoted to understanding the importance of writing good requirements and specific skills need to accomplish this. The afternoon session is focused on estimating and scheduling best practices. In particular, the Yellow Sticky Method is presented as a tool that project teams can use to develop accurate estimates and build realistic schedules that can be met.

Audience:  Project Managers, Product Managers, Program Managers, Software Development Managers/Leads, SQA Managers/Leads, and Technical Writing Managers/Leads

Outline: This workshop is based on the book Software Verification and Validation for Practitioners and Managers, 2nd edition, by Steven R. Rakitin. Text is included with registration.

The morning session covers topics related to writing good requirements and includes:

• Why are requirements important?

• Where do requirements come from?

• Why are requirements hard to write?

• Common problems

• Tools to reduce ambiguity

• Practice Requirements Review

• Summary and Action Plan

The afternoon session covers topics related to accurate estimating and scheduling and includes:

• Economic Motivation

• Why estimates and schedules are wrong?

• Typical “Scheduled-backwards” project

• Estimating and Scheduling Best Practices

• Yellow Sticky Exercise

• Summary and Action Plan

Part III - Software Verification & Validation: An Overview for Practitioners - An interactive full-day workshop for project leads, SQA, and development staff

Date and Time: Thursday, April 14; 8:30AM - 4:30PM

Location: Westin Hotel, 70 Third Avenue, Waltham, MA

In today’s global economy, the product development cycle has shrunk from years to months. Many new products have software embedded within them. Companies are finding that the demand for products frequently exceeds their capacity to deliver. As a result, many organizations are make tradeoffs between product quality and time to market. While perfect software is not practical, delivering poor quality software can have a negative impact on both customers and suppliers. By the effective use of Software Verification & Validation techniques, companies can improve Quality, which lowers long term costs and increases profits, and help get products to market faster.

Audience: QA Managers/Leads, QA staff, Development Managers/Leads, and Project Managers

Outline: This workshop is based on the book: Software Verification and Validation for Practitioners and Managers, 2nd edition, by Steven R. Rakitin. Text is included with registration

Topics covered include:

• Economic Justification for Software V&V

• Overview of Software Development Lifecycle Models

• Overview of Software Verification Techniques

• Peer Review Process

• Practice Peer Review

• Overview of Software Validation Techniques

• Testing Levels, Methods, and Types

• Test Planning

• Testing Measures

• Root Cause Analysis, Triage, Post-Mortems

• Common Testing Problems

• Increasing the Effectiveness of Testing

• Summary and Action Plan

BIO

Steven R. Rakitin has over 30 years experience as a software engineer and software quality manager in a broad range of industries. He was one of the authors of the IEEE Standard for Software Quality Assurance Plans (IEEE-STD-730). He has written several papers on the subject of software quality and recently published a book titled: Software Verification & Validation: A Practitioner’s Guide. 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 and the ASQ Software Division and is on the Editorial Board for the ASQ Journal Software Quality Professional. He presents tutorials and workshops at conferences nationally. As President of Software Quality Consulting Inc., he helps companies establish a more predictable software development process.

Decision (Run/Cancel) Date for  these Courses is Tuesday, April 5,  2005

Course Fee Schedule:

If you plan to attend more than 1 part, call the office for discount information 781-245-5405.

On-line Registration and Payment

On-line registrations for this course have been closed. This course is running. If you have questions, please call Linda. (781) 245-5405

If you plan to attend more than 1 part, call the office for discount information 781-245-5405.

Copyright © 2004 IEEE Boston Section. All rights reserved.
Maintained by R M Stelting

Updated Thursday June 28, 2007