Process Improvement: Status and Challenges 
Dr. Linda Ibrahim, Federal Aviation Administration

Introduction:

Our process improvement field has been launched and has been evolving over the past 20 years. We have a host of process improvement models and standards, widespread organizational improvement initiatives, and an entire new profession of process improvement practitioners. We have made great strides in all these areas, and we have learned many lessons on the way. But issues and problems persist.

This presentation provides perspectives on what has been happening, what is happening now, and what we need to do next regarding several challenges being faced by our process improvement community.

Biography:

Dr. Linda Ibrahim is Chief Engineer for Process Improvement at the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Founding Member of the SPICE Academy , International Project Leader for Enterprise SPICE, and Co-Chair of the Enterprise Process Improvement Community of Practice. Linda led development of FAA-integrated Capability Maturity Model (iCMM), its Safety and Security extensions, and appraisal method. She served for 8 years on the CMMI Steering Group, and participates in numerous professional societies and standards initiatives.

As a long-time process improvement advocate, she has addressed this topic in many forums nationally and internationally, has published extensively in this area, and received numerous awards and citations including the US Department of Transportation Secretary's Meritorious Achievement award for innovation in integrating capability maturity models.

Linda has worked several decades in software engineering as practitioner, manager, educator, consultant, researcher and process improvement leader; in several industry, government, research, and academic organizations; in the US, Europe, and the Middle East. Linda holds a BA in Mathematics, MS in Information Science, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering.


Dr. Linda Ibrahim

Successful Strategies for Software Process Improvement 
Kurt Bittner, Chief Technical Officer - Americas
Ivar Jacobson Consulting

Introduction:

I find that many organizations fail at software improvement efforts because they try to change too much at once and do not take into account the barriers created by the culture and management approach of the organization. This presentation describes a proven approach to software process improvement that allows organizations to identify and address specific problem areas without having to completely change everything they are doing. This presentation presents results from real projects, looking at why large-scale process adoption efforts tend to fail with regularity and providing strategies for overcoming the barriers to success.

Outline:

  • Experiences with large scale Process Adoption
    • Why large-scale process adoption efforts fail
    • Why defining the process and then deploying the process through training and mentoring is ineffective
    • Why defining the process is the least important factor
    • The role of cultural change in process adoption
  • How practice by practice adoption improves results
    • What is a practice
    • Examples of practices
    • How practices define a unit of change
    • Using practices to drive change
  • Using competences to staff projects and develop teams
    • How competencies are different from roles
    • Using competencies in skill development plans
    • Using competencies to staff projects
  • Tracking project status and results
    • Why traditional measurement against plan fails
    • Practical project measurements
  • Letting projects configure their own process
    • Facilitating assessment of skill and process gaps
    • Using gap analysis to select practices for improvement
  • Sustaining process change
    • The role of culture
    • The role of measurement systems
    • Conclusion

Participants will learn :

Attendees will learn why traditional approaches to software process improvement fail, how a practice-by-practice approach to change overcomes the barriers encountered in traditional adoption efforts, how to introduce change incrementally by identifying problem areas and introducing change in just those areas that need improvement. They will also learn how management systems and cultural factors affect the outcome of process adoption efforts. They will take away strategies for being more effective in their own change efforts.

Biography:

Kurt is chief technology officer for Ivar Jacobson International, Americas and has worked in the software industry for over 25 years in a variety of roles including developer, team leader, architect, project manager, and business leader. He has led agile projects, run a large division of a software development company, survived and thrived in several start-ups, run an acquisition, and worked with clients in a variety of industries including aerospace, finance, energy, and electronics. He was a key contributor to the early development of the Rational Unified Process as well as, more recently, IBM's Jazz project (see www.jazz.net ). His experience includes significant work in Banking and Finance, relational database system design and architecting, and consulting and mentoring a wide variety of clients on software development improvement strategies and approaches. He is the co-author of "Use Case Modeling" and "Managing Iterative Software Development Projects".


Kurt Bittner