Date: Sun, 13 May 2001 08:07:53 -0400 From: John Pustaver Subject: Fwd: SPIN Meeting Announcement Tuesday May 15, 2001- 6:30 PM Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN) Meeting Announcement Topic: Management's Role in Achieving Predictable Software Development Speaker: Steve Rakitin When: Tuesday, May 15, 2001. 6:30pm-8:30pm 6:30-7:00 Networking and Round Tables 7:00-7:10 Announcements 7:10-8:10 Presentation 8:10-8:30 Questions and Answers Who: Everyone (Industry, Government, Academia) Location: General Dynamics, 77 "A" St., Needham MA. Info: See our web page, http://www.cs.uml.edu/Boston-SPIN For SPIN info, contact Anna Allison: anna@annaallison.com Note: Boston SPIN meetings are free. No RSVP is necessary. Abstract: Management's Role in Achieving Predictable Software Development For many companies, the demand for their software products frequently exceeds their capability to deliver. As a result, many software companies frequently fail to meet customer expectations. This leads to frustrated, unhappy customers and frustrated employees. Most software organizations lack discipline, credibility, and most importantly, predictability. As a result, it is very 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 may become difficult to manage, and your customers may be unable to plan for introduction of your software into their organization. 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. Becoming more predictable can help your organization manage commitments more effectively, balance issues of time-to-market vs. quality, and as a direct result, improve your bottom line. This overview provides Managers and Executives with a brief summary of specific steps they can take to help their organizations become more predictable. About the Speaker: Steven R. Rakitin has over 25 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. About the Roundtables: Roundtables are focused group or "birds-of-a-feather" discussions, with a facilitator, to stimulate and moderate discussion. Roundtables are held during the Networking portion of the SPIN meeting. See our web page, http://www.cs.uml.edu/Boston-SPIN to see which topics are selected for this SPIN meeting. Directions: From Route 128 in Needham, take exit 19A onto Highland Avenue East. Take your first right by the Ground Round and take your second left onto "A" Street. General Dynamics is the last building on the right. Enter the parking lot by the General Dynamics sign and come into the building by the cafeteria entrance, which is located to the left of the main entrance. There will be a security guard at the entrance. . See http://www.gd-cs.com/needham.html for directions. Cancellations (including weather cancellations): We will notify the membership via email to the SPIN distribution list, post the notice on the SPIN web page, and send the cancellation announcement to Channel 7 TV and radio, WRKO AM 680 starting at 3pm. SPIN Sponsors: General Dynamics Communications Systems, Needham, MA, http://www.gd-cs.com/needham.html Raytheon Corp., Lexington, MA, http://www.raytheon.com Edelman & Associates, http://www.edeltech.com Quality Search, Inc., Danvers, MA, http://www.qualsearch.com/ We thank the Computer Science department of UMass-Lowell for providing support and hosting our web page. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Software Quality Consulting voice:978-443-4254 fax:978-443-6052 pustaver@swquality.com http://www.swquality.com/users/pustaver