All tutorials count for credit towards CSTP (Certified Software Test Professional) re-certification

All tutorials are from 8:30 - 4:30 PM

Friday, November 16, 2007

Introduction:

Peer Reviews have been shown in many studies and through empirical evidence “in the wild” to be the single most effective technique for reducing the level of defects in delivered systems They are considered a best industry practice for detecting software defects early and learning about software artifacts. Peer Reviews are composed of software walkthroughs and software inspections and should be integral to software product engineering activities. The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) identified software inspections as an industry practice essential to managing the software process [Humphrey 89] and the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) includes Peer Reviews in its Product Verification process area.

Effectively implementing Peer Reviews requires planning and strong leadership – to get the optimum value from the significant investment that is necessary in terms of time and effort the leadership team needs to have a clear understanding of what needs to be done at each step in the process.

This class provides a foundation for planning, conducting and institutionalizing a Peer Review Program.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand key peer review terms and concepts
• Be able to implement a peer review program
• Understand how to plan and conduct a PEER review program
• Understand the key data collection and reporting requirements for a good peer review program
• Understand how to intuitionalize a Peer Review program

Outline:

• Verification & Peer Reviews
  • Verification concepts
  • Verification Key Process Areas
  • Peer Review Concepts Overview
  • Peer Review defined
  • Benefits of Peer Reviews
  • CMMI and Peer Reviews
    • Verification Key Process Area
    • Verification goals and practices
• Performing Peer Reviews
  • Roles and responsibilities
  • Steps to conducting
  • Data collection, Analysis & Reporting
• Implementing Peer Review Program
  • Peer Review Planning & Policy Development
  • Establishing review criteria
  • Developing & customizing checklists
  • Planning for data collection
• Peer Review Program Institutionalization
  • Kicking it off
  • Training
  • Institutionalization road blocks
  • Tools/ automation

Biography:

Clyneice Chaney, Corporate Quality Manager with Project Performance Corporation brings over 20 years of testing, quality assurance and process improvement experience. Clyneice holds certifications from American Society for Quality as a Certified Quality Manager, Quality Assurance Institute's Certified Quality Analyst, and Project Management Institute's Professional Project Manager. She has participated as an examiner for state quality awards for Georgia and Virginia. Focusing on process improvement and procedure development in the software testing and quality assurance areas, Clyneice has successfully lead process improvement, methodology development, and reengineering projects for organizations wishing to improve their software development, testing processes, and tool implementation. Clyneice is currently an instructor for the International Institute for Software Testing and has presented technical papers at the Software Engineering Institute: SEPG Conference, American Society for Quality: Quality Manager's conference, Quality Assurance Institute International Testing conference and STAR East Testing and the Quality Assurance Institute conference.

Clyneice Chaney

F2: Estimating Resource-Constrained Projects  
Robin Goldsmith, JD

Introduction:

Learning Objectives:

Particiants will learn:

• Ten reasons why effort and duration are estimated incorrectly.
• Techniques for adjusting estimates in accordance with resource variations.
• How most scheduling tools fail to recognize effects of resource constraints.
• Methods for assigning the right resources to the right tasks at the right times.
• Ways to monitor and improve estimating effectiveness

Outline:

• Critical Success Factors
  • Systems industry's estimating track record
  • Impact of poor credibility on estimates
  • Critical success factors for estimating
  • Lack of commitment to delivering results
  • Political correctness--acceptable answer
  • What does your boss gain when you fail?
  • Why bosses give unrealistic targets
  • Knowing accurate estimates are impossible
  • Failure to learn how to improve estimates
  • Estimating with no idea of what's involved
• The Pieces That Take The Effort
  • Avoiding overlooking things
  • Defining all the requirements, deliverables
  • Identifying tasks needed for the delivery
  • Misjudging work involved, subtasks
  • Failing to provide for contingencies, change
  • Sizing: Function Points, lines of code
  • Calibrating effort and duration
  • Accounting for differences among resources
  • Normal variation and Parkinson's Law
  • Work Breakdown Structure techniques
  • Relating to resource type and level
  • Monitoring, adjusting, and refining
• Fitting The Pieces Together
  • Intrinsic vs. extrinsic duration
  • Productive time, individual differences
  • Where time goes during the day
  • Rules of thumb adjustments
  • Calendar conflicts
  • Can't catch up on weekends
  • Burnout issues
  • Quiet time technique
  • Effects of multitasking
  • Tips for getting more done in same time
  • Controlling time lost in meetings
• Dependency Networking
  • Concurrent and dependent tasks
  • Managing the Critical Path
  • Leveraging with slack
  • Managing resources across projects
  • Resource leveling techniques
  • Appropriately assigning added resources
  • Only two ways to finish the project earlier
  • Abide both task and resource dependencies
  • Brooks' Law and its corollaries
  • Recognizing resources builds credibility
  • Making estimates come true

Biography:

Robin Goldsmith is internationally recognized as an authority on business engineering and software acquisition/development quality, testing, and productivity. He is a frequent speaker at leading conferences and formerly International Vice President of the Association for Systems Management. Robin is the author of the book:"Discovering REAL Business Requirements for Software Project Success".

Robin Goldsmith

F3: Using Metrics in Life Cycle Software Quality Assurance  
Alfred Sorkowitz

Introduction:

Experience has shown that software quality must be built in at every stage of the Software Life Cycle. It cannot be added, inspected, or tested-in after the software has been built, by a separate SQA staff. This seminar focuses on the use of a set of “best practices” software metrics that can be used to make assessments throughout the software life cycle as to whether software progress, productivity, and quality goals are being met. This tutorial presents a practical guide on how to start taking advantage of these “best practices” metrics that have successfully been used by many SQA, IV&V, and Testing staffs.

Learning Objectives:

• An introduction and overview of SQA. This includes the purpose, goals, and activities performed by the SQA organization.
• A discussion of the software life cycle, from Requirements through Maintenance. For each phase of the life cycle, the following topics will be addressed:
  • Activities performed in the phase
  • Products developed in the phase
  • Reviews conducted in the phase
  • Software Metrics applicable to the phase
• A set of government/industry “best practices” metrics with numerous examples, variations, and case studies. These metrics cover the entire life cycle, and can track the, quality, productivity, and status of the various life cycle phases

Outline:

• An introduction to SQA.
• SQA – Purpose, Goals, and Activities
• The SQA Plan
• The Importance of Measurement in SQA
• Capturing and Using Metric Data To Set New SQA Goals
• SQA throughout the Life Cycle, from Requirements through Maintenance.
• Life Cycle Costs
• Activities, products, and reviews performed in each of the life cycle phases.
• A set of “best practices” metrics that can be utilized throughout the life cycle
• S/W Size Metrics
• Software Personnel Metrics
• Requirements Volatility Metrics
• Requirements Progress Metrics
• Requirement Tracing Metrics
• Testable, and Non-Testable Requirements
• Requirements; Levels of Detail
• Criteria For Good requirements
• Design Stability Metrics
• Fault Tracking and Management Metrics
• Defect Containment Metrics
• Computer Resources Utilization Metrics
• Design Complexity Metrics
• Design Progress Metrics
• CSU Development Progress Metrics
• Test Coverage Analysis Metrics
• Depth of Testing Metrics
• McCabes Complexity Metric
• Testing Progress metrics
• Breath of Testing Metrics
• Incremental Release Content Metrics
• Two Case Studies – SQA Analysis of Metrics
• SQA – Lessons learned.

Biography:

Alfred Sorkowitz was a Computer Scientist with the Department of the Navy where he was responsible for developing large, real-time software intensive systems. Prior to joining the Dept of the Navy, he was Director of the Standards and Quality Control Staff, at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. While at HUD, he initiated a successful testing procedure to improve the quality of unit testing that utilizes automated tools and testing metrics. A paper on this effort was published in a special issue of the IEEE Computer Society magazine "Computer" devoted to Software Quality Assurance, and was later reprinted and widely distributed in the Department of Defense Computer Institute "Selected Computer Articles"

Alfred Sorkowitz

Introduction:

Learning Objectives:

As a result of this seminar participants will learn to:

• Use basic project management tools and techniques
• Manage the processes of Project Management including Planning, Risk, Estimation, and Change Control
• Apply project management tools and techniques to all your projects
• Organize, plan and schedule current workload for efficient, effective management
• Track, monitor and communicate progress on all current work and projects

Outline:

• Context for project management
  • What are your strengths and challenges in managing projects, processes and day-to-day work? Issues in juggling multiple projects and workload?
  • What is a project? Relationship among a project, day-to-day work and a process?
  • What are your processes, products and customers? How are they defined?
  • What are Process Management and Project Management? Why is their relationship critical to successful project results?
  • What is the Partnership Model and how is used?
• IT Project Management
  • Basic IT quality definitions and application to projects
  • Special considerations for IT Project Management
    • IT Project Life Cycle, Traditional and Progressive Testing
    • Apply “V” model: Static and Dynamic testing
    • Building a customized “V” Model for your projects and processes
• Plan a project
  • How do you begin a project and create a Project Charter?
  • How do you create the problem statement and define the business problem? (A Case Study will be followed throughout the seminar followed by a Workshop where the participants apply the concepts to their own work.)
  • How do you define project requirements?
  • What are SMART Objectives?
  • How do you identify tasks and create the Work Breakdown Structure for projects?
  • How do you use the Logic Diagram and Critical Path Method?
  • How do you plan:
    • Resources allocation: people, HW/SW, facilities
    • Effort estimates
    • Develop budgets
    • Project schedule and milestones
• Monitor project and track progress
  • How do you track and communicate project progress using Gantt Charts and status reporting?
  • How do you create a Communication Plan for standard and ad hoc project reporting?
• Adapt planning and tracking to multiple projects
  • What are the relationships among projects, day-to-day work and processes?
  • How do you manage multiple projects?
  • How can you use software PM tools to plan, track, report on and manage multiple projects?
• Project Controls: What project controls do you need to have in place?
  • What are Change, Configuration and Risk Management for projects?
  • How do you deal with problems, disasters, disrupted schedules, unforeseen events and other issues in projects?
• People Management Issues for projects.
  • What talents, skills and abilities do you need to be an effective project manager?
  • What roles and responsibilities are associated with projects?
  • How do you use the tools of process management to manage projects and people day-to-day?
• Demonstrate ROI and Improve project results:
  • How do you demonstrate ROI from your projects?
  • How do you continuously improve project management? How do you integrate Lessons Learned into day-to-day work?
  • How do you use defect studies to improve processes and project management?
  • Create Action Plan for improved project management

Biography :

Barbara Ainsworth, PMP, CSQA, CSTE, is Managing Member and Principal Consultant for Process Plus International LLC; a female owned minority company that focuses on IT client process management and improvement utilizing models as foundational frameworks. She serves as a consultant to USA and global IT groups in manufacturing, financial services, insurance, and service organizations to help them meet their organization's business objectives by advancing their IT capabilities. She consults with business and IT senior management for strategic direction, and then works cross functionally, at every level, to achieve the desired results.

Barbara Ainsworth

F5: Building the Requirement Management Process 
Michael Yudanin

Introduction:

If you are not clear on where you want to go, you will sure find yourself in a wrong place. Software Requirements are the necessary foundation for any successful project. While having solid requirements is not sufficient for project's success, poor requirements are usually a sufficient condition for failure or at least for significant pain and suffering. Scope creep, fixing incorrect and incomplete requirements and customer frustration – all these are translated into inflated costs and lost business.

An organization that develops or procures software needs to build a solid requirements management process that will lead to consistent creation of high-quality software requirements. This process should fit into the organizational culture and structure, be flexible enough to accommodate the anticipated level of organizational and technological change, accommodate all stakeholders of the software process and – most important – help the organization to increase the quality of its software while staying on time and within budget.

This course will review the considerations related to building a solid requirements management process. It will cover different aspects related to its development and equip process champions with the tools that will help them in creating, improving and maintaining such a process. The instructor will provide multiple practical examples and use Microsoft's Visual Studio Team System for demonstrating some of the concepts.

Who should attend?

This course is essential for project managers, project leads, process engineers, requirement engineers, business and system analysts and every one involved in the requirement process.

Learning Objectives:

Attendees will learn the following:

• Why software requirements are crucial for success and how to prove it to everybody
• What are the types of software requirements and why different classifications are useful
• What is traceability, why it's important and how to make it happen
• What are the criteria for a good software requirement
• How to ensure the quality of the requirements
• How to gather, refine and document requirements
• How to use all that to build a solid Requirements Management Process

Outline:

• The importance of software requirements
• Who needs high-quality requirements: management, development, testing, legal and other aspects
• Why it's worth it: The cost of bad requirements
• When it's not worth it: avoiding analysis-paralysis
• Types of Requirements
• Process stage: Business requirements and Requirements specifications
• Area addressed: Functional vs. Quality Requirements
• Level of details: from Use Cases to Agile Stories
• Presentation: documents, Power Point, prototypes
• Traceability
• What is traceability and why do we need it
• Where, when and how: achieving traceability
• Tools: from Excel spreadsheet to Microsoft Visual Studio Team System
• Assuring the Quality of Requirements
• Quality factors: characteristics of a good software requirement
• Requirement verification: why, what, who, when and how
• Requirements Gathering Methods
• Methodologies and models: standards, approaches, techniques
• Refining requirements: methods, techniques, pros and cons
• Documenting requirements: processes, people, tools
• Assessing what is best for you
• Building a Requirements Management Process
• Defining the process that is best for you
• Components of a good requirements management process: the methods, the people, the tools
• Where to start and how to continue
• Pitfalls to avoid
• What is out there: online and other resources for requirements management

Biography:

Michael Yudanin is a seasoned IT professional, who specializes in management of IT services delivery and in process improvement consulting. His management skills are based on best practices and leading standards like CMMI, IEEE and ISO, streamlines software life cycle processes and achieves higher product quality through process improvement. Michael provides solutions for complex software development environments, e.g., large scale implementation of highly customized software products and distributed organizations. He is very knowledgeable in the latest developments with IT processes and technologies. Michael is very dependable and professional. He is Certified by the American Society for Quality as a Software Quality Engineer (CSQE).

Michael Yudanin

F6: Implementing an Effective Measurement Program 
Tom Cagley

Introduction:

Measurement is a core requirement for effectively implementing any process. The trick, if there can be said to be a trick, is to focus on the measuring what is important rather than on just what can be measured. In the “Implementing an Effective Measure Program” attendees with discover how to discover the metrics needed to support their organization. The workshop will focus on implementing the measures needed to support a SEI CMMI Maturity Three organization (including those leveraging agile development techniques). Measures need to be centered on a success. Defining success is crucial to measuring the correct “things” (a technical term), because there are certainly lots to measure. Measuring success requires a metrics palate built from the business goals that support quality and performance.

Outline:

• Overview of Measurement
  • Why Measure?
  • Critical Issues for Software Providers
  • Measurement As A Diagnostic Tool
  • A Measurement Model
  • Guides to Establishing a Metrics Set
  • Information Needs a Filter
• PSM and Other Measurement Frameworks
• Overview of CMMI
• Implementing Measures Within A Maturity Level 3 CMMI Organization
  • Project or Organizational View of Measurement
  • Measurement, Why a Whole Process Area?
  • Measures for Maturity Levels Two and Three
  • Matching Measures and CMMI Needs
    • Areas of Project Management Responsibility
  • Criteria
  • Hey We Are Agile, What Do We Do?
  • Generic Practices Requiring Measurement
  • Specific Practices Requiring Measurement
  • Measurement Recommendations
    • Measures
    • Sample Charts and Analysis
    • WBS to Support Measurement
  • Examples of Integrating Measurement
    • Estimation
      • Effective Estimating
      • Transforming Unknowns into Knowns Estimation Funnel
      • CMMI Coverage
      • Measure Twice, Implement Once
    • Planning versus Estimation
      • Earned Value
        • Overview
        • Value to Measurement
        • Value to Planning and Tracking
      • Measuring Change
      • CMMI Coverage
    • Peer Review Reporting
      • Finding Defects
      • Driving Change
• Putting It All Together
  • Effectiveness
  • Efficiency
  • Rules and Recommendations
  • Summary

Biography:

Mr. Cagley is an authority in guiding organizations through the process of integrating software measurement with model-based assessments to yield effective process improvement programs. Areas of expertise encompass management experience in methods and metrics, quality assurance and the CMMI®. Tom is the Vice President and Director of Process Improvement and Measurement for David Consulting Group. He active in the community serving as the President of the International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG) as well as being an active blogger and producing the Software Process and Measurement podcast (www.spamcast.net).

Monday Thursday Program at a Glance