Where We'll Be
30 Jul: Our 19th Cutter IT E-mail Advisor: Cultivation
13 Oct: We've been selected to present 2 papers at the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference
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6 Jul: Compendium 7.27: All That Jazz
29 Jun: Compendium 7.26: Faith in the Process
22 Jun: Compendium 7.25: Pet Tricks
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PresentationsThese topics can serve as lunch-and-learn events, breakfast seminars, or introductory sessions, from one-hour presentations to half-day workshops. 10 Traits of Healthy Software DevelopmentWhether renovating houses or developing software, there are always key activities that distinguish the great from the average or poor - the fit and healthy from the sick. Through our experiences over the past 20 years we have identified 10 key practices that we see as common traits of successful software development teams. All are necessary in their abstract sense but the responsibility lies with the organization to find the appropriate degree of implementation and an adoption/adaptation schedule that fits the business objectives. The 10 Traits of Healthy Software Development will certainly raise the awareness and discussion level in your organization. A Business Case for Improved PracticesThough most IT organizations could benefit from changes in their approach to building software, few attempt to change. Even fewer manage to sustain the effort to realize the benefits. One of the reasons for maintaining the status quo is that the true costs of poor practices are seldom quantified, let alone exposed to most decision makers. This discussion identifies a model for quantifying these costs associated with inefficiencies that most development groups consider normal. It shows that with very modest improvement goals, significant savings can be achieved. This business case affirms that most groups should start on the path of continuous improvement today. Random Acts of QualityUsually, when discussing quality, we usually fall into two traps – we wave our arms and talk about quality as a nebulous thing that is tough to define and even tougher to achieve, or we present grand Quality Schemes that will take years to implement and often fail to result in a better product. In this presentation, we’ll discuss specific activities you can perform in your organization that can contribute to improving product quality. Simple, small-scale activities that don’t require management approval, committees or corporate initiatives will face much lower barriers and specific activities are more likely to reveal progress in the short term. A collection of Random Acts are presented for discussion, and participants are encouraged to bring along anecdotes of simple things that have worked in their careers as well. What Is Quality?The term Quality means different things to different people, and that is one of the major challenges associated with the building of a quality product – we rarely take the time to agree in advance what Quality means. If we don’t agree on what we want up front, it is highly unlikely that we are going to meet everyone’s expectations when we are done – how many of us have made a major purchase, only to be disappointed with the results? How many of us have built something and ended up rationalizing that it was ‘good enough’, or never really finished the job at all? This talk helps you gain an understanding of what that challenging word – Quality – really means, why it is critical to set quality expectations up front for success, and identifies some approaches for making your task of defining ‘quality’ easier. Quality Attributes PrimerOne of the most neglected areas in gathering and capturing requirements is the area of Quality Attributes, also commonly referred to as the non-functional requirements or the "ilities". The challenge of making the leap directly to these statements is probably one of the reasons that this component of a complete requirements specification is ignored. This discussion describes a refined set of steps that you can adopt that will make it somewhat easier for you to make the leap from these nebulous attributes all the way to testable quantified statements regarding the quality of the system being built. Software Development Best PracticesThere are a number of lists out there to describe the ‘good things to do’ in software development, but there is only so much time in a day. This discussion walks through a number of the more important ‘best practices’ out there, highlights the value of each, and suggests that you are likely to benefit the most from only selecting a few to concentrate on at any one time to adjust your current approach. Right Up Front: Strategies for Prioritizing Test ActivitiesThere is no shortage of activities and tasks that you could perform to ensure that you ship a great product, but there usually is insufficient time to do all the things you would like to do. Understanding that an early focus on product quality can drastically increase returns, this discussion presents the breadth of activities you could tackle by expanding the traditional “V-model for testing". Then we look at strategies for ensuring that your limited testing resources are optimally allocated. The end result is an optimization of your existing resources and opportunities. Benefits of a Well Managed ApproachOne of the roadblocks to improving practices is the failure for the people involved to realize the benefits associate with increased effectiveness. This discussion describes the typical benefits that organizations are likely to achieve at all levels (for the individual, the project, and the organization) and identifies the critical success factors that organizations should be aware of to ensure that these benefits are realized. Benchmarking for the Rest of UsThere is no shortage of data available to determine whether your software team is sufficiently productive. Whether it is the often quoted Chaos Report from the Standish Group, the quarterly updates from the Software Engineering Institute or the hidden project data behind parametric estimation models such as COCOMO II, it is seductive to hold your own performance against these standards for comparison. We quickly find, though, that these comparisons bear little relevance for most organizations, especially those that are 'up-and-coming'. It is the growing companies who are most in need of benchmarks to gauge their performance and progress. This discussion identifies the challenges with most published information, and enumerates the approaches that we can all use to generate meaningful benchmarking information. A Survey of Agile ApproachesEvery once in a while an idea comes up that takes the industry by storm, and it can be some time before the dust settles and we see how much lasting impact there really was. The latest in this long line of ideas is the group of practices known as the Agile Approaches, which are radically different approaches to software development from what has traditionally been the norm for 'best practices'. With controversial practices such as pair programming, daily scrums, and embracing change, we are already seeing the camps forming for and against Agile Approaches, and there are stories of huge successes and abysmal failures. Here is a survey of the more prominent approaches, and a discussion of the pros and cons of each. Customer Centric Product DevelopmentIt's no secret the concept of being customer-centric can pay tremendous dividends -from significant increases in incremental revenue to improved internal productivity. But how does that translate to product development?The seminar focuses on what it means to be customer-centric in product development. It is intended for executives and senior level management, whose responsibility it is to ensure the company maximizes the value its products create for customers. It is also useful for any product team member who is responsible for building better products, faster and at less cost - in a nutshell, everyone. A Strong Start: Testing Software RequirementsIt has been clearly shown that the cost of fixing a bug in software projects varies a function of how long it has been latent in the system, by several orders of magnitude in some cases! If capturing requirements is one of the initial stages of a software project, it makes strong financial sense to be able to validate these as thoroughly as possible. This seminar describes a variety of approaches that can be brought to bear on the problem of making sure that you make a strong start on your software projects by validating your requirements before forging ahead to developing your system. The Value of a Project Management OfficeThere is a great deal of evidence that points to the value of a PMO for consistent application of PM best-practices within an organization. Most organizations, however, if they focus solely on a traditional view of their projects, are not leveraging the full value of their PMO. The greatest value from a PMO comes from a strategic, business level viewpoint that includes a broader perspective of the projects managed by the group, and leveraging the group to become the drivers of the company's future. The State of Software Practice TodayThere are numerous reports indicating that the state of software practice in the industry is far from the state of best-practices in the field. We have all experienced challenging projects in our careers, some of us have been on successful projects - but are we improving overall? This presentation identifies the key findings from the Diagnostic that Clarrus has run in numerous software organizations, ranging from CMM Level 5 rated groups to startups that have yet to deliver a product. There are surprising findings about areas where the industry is currently doing well and those where there's room to improve. Critical Elements for Software EstimationThere is no denying that estimation for software projects is hard. From the lack of credible initial information on which to base an estimate, to the volatility of scope throughout and the difficulty associated with maintaining good historical information, estimation is the minefield of software development. Layer on top of all that the targets you are trying to achieve, and estimation gets even nastier, yet it remains one of the most important precursors for success. This presentation provides the critical elements of both a reasonable estimate as well as a reasonable approach for incorporating these estimates into your management of the project. Common pitfalls are identified, and specific improvements you can make to your existing approach give you the opportunity to increase your likelihood for success immediately. Software Configuration ManagementConfiguration Management is the safety net that can soften the blow when disaster strikes. Whether you are trying to reproduce a fielded version, back out of a change that didn’t quite work as planned, or recover from a disk crash, a solid Configuration Management strategy can prevent a lot of gray hairs. This brief session reinforces the notion that Configuration Management is absolutely essential for software projects, identifies the approaches that can reduce your risk in software development, and suggests strategies for implementing these approaches with your team. Change ManagementScope Creep has been identified as one of the leading causes of project failure in the software industry, and Change Management is the cure. This brief session clarifies the need for reasonable approaches to change management, identifies the best-practices that successful organizations use to cure their pains, and provides tips for shoring up these practices on your projects. Please contact us for more information regarding these presentations.
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