Management Responsibilities for the Inspection (Peer Review) Process
Roger Stewart and Lew Priven
Co-Managing Directors
Stewart-Priven Group (SPG)

Introduction:

Stewart and Priven each taught inspections for eight years to clients of Michael Fagan Associates at approximately 50 company locations, to 5,000 students in 250 classes. During this period they recognized that shortly after completing training clients were not sustaining their initial inspection performance. They determined that two major reasons inspection performance is not sustained are:

  • Management's lack of understanding of their responsibilities related to supporting the inspection process
  • Lack of management tools for planning, tracking and monitoring the inspection process.

Too often, management at the line, project and executive levels assumed it was up to the practitioners to achieve lasting and effective inspection results. They are wrong!

Participants will learn:

  • what specific management responsibilities and commitments are needed to support and attain the benefits of successful inspection implementation
  • the type and features required by management inspection support tools

This presentation will not deal with inspection process execution by practitioners.

Outline:

  • Software Inspections (Peer Reviews): Why do them?
  • What's Wrong with Software Inspections
  • Management's Inspection Responsibilities and Tools for Success:
    • During Project Inspection Planning
    • During Inspection Execution
    • After Inspection Completion
    • Throughout Project Development and Testing
  • Satisfying Inspection Dependencies on Management

Biography:

Roger Stewart is an experienced Lead Systems Engineer and Program Manager with an extensive management and technical background – including Systems Engineering, Software Development, System Integration, System Testing, and Process Improvement.

Prior to co-founding the Stewart-Priven Group LLC, Stewart was an Associate with Michael Fagan Associates, where he trained over 3,000 students at 30 company locations in the Fagan Inspection Process. Before joining Michael Fagan, the founder of software inspections, Stewart worked for IBM Federal Systems, and later Lockheed-Martin Federal Systems, developing large complex software systems for the Space Shuttle, Satellite Command and Control, Air Traffic Control, and military avionics systems. He also worked in the commercial sector developing Banking and Telecommunications networking and operating system software.

Stewart's first use of formal inspections occurred while managing the On-Board Space Shuttle Guidance, Navigation and Computer Redundancy Management software. For the rest of his career, inspections formed an integral part of projects he managed and worked on. Stewart was the architect and lead author for advancing the Software Development Life Cycle for the Telecommunications Systems Development Process, which included introducing and defining their inspection process. This work was recognized with an IBM Communications Division level award. While on a 3-year assignment in Sydney Australia to manage the development of a new generation of banking applications and services, Stewart was the Program Manager for defining and implementing the Software Development life cycle - including the introduction and definition of inspections. While the Test Architect for Air Route Traffic Control System Upgrade programs, Stewart defined the end-to-end test and acceptance life cycle and the inspection process used.

Stewart has a BS in Mathematics from Cortland University .

Lew Priven is an experienced executive with an extensive management and technical background – including system and software development, software quality training, management development training, human resource management, and executive management.

Prior to co-founding the Stewart-Priven Group, LLC, Priven was an Associate with Michael Fagan Associates, where he trained over 2,000 students at 24 company locations in the Fagan Inspection Process. Before joining Michael Fagan Associates, Priven was Chief Operating Officer of Wellspring Resources, LLC. Among his responsibilities at Wellspring, he managed the rapid growth of the Washington , DC application development center. To help manage the growth, he introduced and made extensive use of inspections to insure the quality and timely delivery of software supporting the delivery of outsourced benefits administration services. Priven was Vice-President of Engineering and Application Development at General Electric Information Services (GEIS). While at GEIS he introduced inspections for verifying the accuracy and usability of procedures for the introduction of software and network upgrades.

Priven held a number of positions at IBM including: Vice President of Application Development for IBM's Application Systems Division, Director of Operations and Development for the IBM Information Network, and Vice President of Information Technology and Human Resources for Satellite Business Systems. He also served as a Director on the Corporate Technology Staff.

During the 1970s, Priven formed and managed the team, led by Michael Fagan, to improve the quality of operating system software which resulted in the development of the inspection process. In addition to his work on inspections, Priven received an IBM Outstanding Contribution Award for developing the Continuous Integration process.

Priven has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University and an MS in Management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.