Many software organizations lack discipline, credibility, and most importantly, predictability. As a result, it is often difficult to determine when software products will be released, the features these products will have, and 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.

This 3-part workshop is based on the book Software Verification and Validation for Practitioners and Managers, 2nd edition, by Steven R. Rakitin. the book will be available for purchase onsite through the instructor.

Part I - Management’s Role in Achieving Predictable Software Development

An interactive ˝ day workshop for Senior Management

Date & Time:  Tuesday, April 15, 8:30AM - 12PM

Location:  TBD

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: Topics covered include:

• Motivation

  - What is a Predictable Software Development Process?

  - Why is it important for my organization?

  - How can I help my organization become more Predictable?

   

• Economics of Software Development

  - Software Defect Cost Models

  - Bug Fix Releases are not Free

   

• Balancing Quality, Features, and Schedule

  - Estimating and Scheduling Best Practices

  - Estimating Skills

  - Scheduling Skills

  - Management’s Role with regard to Estimating and Scheduling

   

• Balancing People, Process, and Product

  - Software Development Best Practices

  - Documenting your Software Development Process

  - Managing Customer Expectations

  - Dealing with People Issues

  - Management’s Role with regard to Process

   

• Summary and Action Plan

 Part II - Building Realistic Project Schedules from Software Requirements

An interactive full-day workshop for Software Project Teams

Date & Time:  Wednesday, April 16, 8:30AM - 4:30PM

Location:  TBD

The increasing demand for complex software coupled with the inability of many organizations to write clear, concise requirements often 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 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.

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

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

• Introduction

• About Requirements…

• Identifying and Removing Ambiguity

• Alternative Techniques for Expressing Requirements

• Managing Changes to Requirements

• Summary and Action Plan

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

• Estimates, Targets, Commitments, Schedules

• Why most schedules are wrong

• Estimating Best Practices

  - Estimating Exercise

   

• Scheduling Best Practices

  - Scheduling Exercise

   

• Summary

Part III - Software Verification & Validation:

An Overview for Practitioners

An interactive full-day workshop for project leads, QA, and development staff

Date & Time:  Thursday, April 17, 8:30AM - 4:30PM

Location:  TBD

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 demand for products frequently exceeds their capacity to deliver. In addition, complexity has been increasing exponentially. As a result, many organizations trade off product quality to meet aggressive time to market goals. While perfect software is not practical, delivering poor quality software can have a negative impact on both customers and development organizations. Using effective Software Verification & Validation techniques, companies can improve Quality, which lowers long-term costs and increases profits, and at the same time, help get products to market on-time.

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

 

Outline:  Topics covered include:

• Introduction

  - Definitions, Standards, Business Case

  - Software Development Models

   

• Software Verification Activities

  - Requirements

  - Verification Exercise

  - Peer Reviews

  - Unit and Integration Testing

   

• Software Validation Activities

  - Testing Principles

  - Methods, Strategies, Levels, Types of Tests

  - Planning and Executing

  - Validation Exercise

  - Final Topics: Triage, Root Cause Analysis, Automated Testing Challenges

   

• Summary

Lecturers Bio:  Steven R. Rakitin has over 30 years experience as a software engineer and software quality manager in a broad range of industries. He has written extensively on the subject of software quality and published a book titled: Software Verification & Validation for Practitioners and Managers. He helped write the first IEEE Software Engineering Standard (for Software Quality Assurance Plans, IEEE-STD-730) and is currently on the IEEE Standard 1012 (Software Verification & Validation) Working Group. 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 papers and workshops at conferences worldwide. As president of Software Quality Consulting Inc., he helps companies establish a more predictable software development process. Contact him at steve@swqual.com

Decision (Run/Cancel) Date for  this Courses is Monday, April 7, 2008

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

Course Fee Schedule:

On-line Registration and Payment for Part 3

This course has been cancelled.  If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the IEEE office at 781-245-5405.

On-line Registration and Payment for Part 2

This course has been cancelled.  If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the IEEE office at 781-245-5405.

On-line Registration and Payment for Part 1

This course has been cancelled.  If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the IEEE office at 781-245-5405.

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Maintained by R M Stelting

Updated Monday April 07, 2008