Serving Eastern Massachusetts
Course Description
| Course Name: | Requirements-based Estimating and Scheduling Best Practices |
| Time & Date: | 8:30AM - 4:30 PM, Monday, April 5 |
| Location: | Holiday Inn Select Hotel, 15 Middlesex Canal Park Road, Woburn, MA |
| Speaker: | Steven Rakitin, Software Quality Consulting Inc. |
Course Summary:
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 compounding the problem, many companies over-commit (commit to more than they can reasonably expect to deliver) and under-deliver (deliver less than was promised).
Since software project teams are often unable to accurately estimate and schedule the work they need to perform, 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.
To address this problem, organizations need to learn how to:
- Write better requirements;
- Accurately estimate tasks based on those requirements;
- Develop accurate, realistic schedules based on these estimates, and
- Under-commit and over-deliver, that is, make promises that can actually be met and deliver more than was promised.
This full day workshop provides the skills to learn how to under-commit and over-deliver. The workshop focuses on understanding the importance of writing good requirements and specific skills need to accomplish this. An interactive exercise is used to illustrate techniques for writing clear, unambiguous requirements.
Estimating skills are discussed and several estimating best practices are reviewed. A hands-on estimating exercise is used to illustrate the Wideband Delphi Method.
Finally, scheduling skills are discussed along with examples of Scheduling Best Practices. The Yellow Sticky Method is presented as an example of a best practice project teams can use to develop realistic schedules that can be met. An interactive exercise using the Yellow Sticky Method is used to illustrate the power of this scheduling technique.
The workshop covers topics related to writing good requirements basic estimating techniques and good scheduling practices:
Writing Good Requirements
- Ambiguity – ways to identify and remove ambiguity from requirements
- Techniques to Reduce Ambiguity
- Managing Change
- Requirements Management Activities and Tools
- Action Plan
Estimating Skills
- Typical “Scheduled-backwards” project
- Estimating - Why most estimates are wrong
- Estimates, Targets, Commitments, Schedules
- Estimating Best Practices
- Function Points
- Wideband Delphi Method
- Improving Estimating Skills
- Estimation Exercise
Scheduling Skills
- Scheduling Best Practices
- Gantt, CPM, PERT
- Yellow Sticky Method
- Dealing with changes to requirements
- Scheduling Exercise
- Summary
Instructor 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.
Registration includes, notes, coffee breaks and lunch
Decision (Run/Cancel) Date for this Courses is Monday, March 25, 2010
FEES
Payment received by March 22: IEEE Members $260
Payment received by March 22: Non-members $290
Payment received after March 22: IEEE Members $290
Payment received after March 22: Non-members $320