Date: Sat, 23 Oct 1999 21:33:47 -0400 From: Daniel Forrest Allen Subject: Boston SPIN - November Meeting Announcement Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN) November Meeting Announcement Topic: Good Enough Quality Speaker: James Bach When: Tuesday, Nov. 16, 1999. 6:30pm-8:30pm 6:30-7:00 Networking and Round Tables 7:00-7:10 Announcements 7:10-8:10 James Bach: Good Enough Quality 8:10-8:30 Questions and Answers Who: Everyone (Academia, Government, Industry) Location: General Dynamics, 77 "A" St., Needham MA. Info: See our web page, http://www.cs.uml.edu/Boston-SPIN For SPIN info, contact Johanna Rothman, jr@jrothman.com, or 781-641-4046 Abstract: In intellectual enterprises, "Good Enough" is an abstract concept and a challenging goal-- at least for those of us who want to be *absolutely certain* we are doing a good enough job. One thing we do to evaluate the goodness of software is to test it. But how do we know that our testing is itself good enough? We need methods of evaluating the goodness of testing. In this talk I will present two heuristic models that I use to evaluate test processes. They are part my slow, but relentless progress toward a comprehensive cognitive test methodology. About the Speaker: James Bach (http://www.satisfice.com) is founder and principal consultant of Satisfice, Inc. James cut his teeth as a programmer, tester, and SQA manager in Silicon Valley and the world of market-driven software development. He has worked at Apple, Borland, a couple of startups, and a couple of consulting companies. He currently edits and writes the Software Realities column in Computer magazine. Through his models of Good Enough quality, exploratory testing, and heuristic test design, he focuses on helping individual software testers cope with the pressures of life in the trenches and answer the questions "What am I doing here? What should I do now?" For more information about roundtables, see our web page, http://www.cs.uml.edu/Boston-SPIN. 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 (by 3pm) to the SPIN distribution list, post the notice on the SPIN web page, and announce the cancellation on Channel 7 TV and radio, WRKO AM 680. SPIN Sponsors: General Dynamics Communications Systems, Needham, MA, http://www.gd-cs.com/needham.html Raytheon Corp., Lexington, MA, http://www.raytheon.com We thank the Computer Science department of UMass-Lowell for providing support and hosting our web page. -------------------------------------- Dan Allen Membership Chairperson - Boston SPIN -------------------------------------- danallen@danallen.com -------------------------------------- 603-756-0924 --------------------------------------