The Ideal Software Project
Watts S. Humphrey
Introduction:
Every so often, a software development project is so exciting and rewarding that the team members talk about it for years to come. Unfortunately, however, these exciting and rewarding projects are the rare exception. All too often, our projects turn into exhausting slogs through a seemingly endless swamp of test defects while management keeps pushing us to accelerate the work. In this talk, Watts Humphrey talks about ideal jobs and the characteristics projects must have to be viewed as ideal. He also describes why such projects are rare and what can be done to turn almost any project into an ideal one. Many organizations are now using the Software Engineering Institute's Team Software Process (TSP)sm to transform their own working environments and to achieve the greatly improved development performance that results from ensuring that developers have projects that approach this ideal. In closing, he briefly summarizes the steps required to achieve these results and what organizations can do to learn about and to capitalize on these methods.
Biography:
Watts S. Humphrey founded the Software Process Program of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a Fellow of the Institute and is a research scientist on its staff. From 1959 to 1986 he was associated with IBM Corporation where he was director of programming.
Mr. Humphrey holds five U.S. Patents. In 1991 he served on the Board of Examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige Board of Examiners National Quality Award. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Chicago, a master's degree in physics from the Illinois Institute of Technology, and a master's degree in business administration from the University of Chicago. In 1993, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronauts presented Mr. Humphrey with the Aerospace Software Engineering Award. Mr. Humphrey was awarded an honorary Ph.D. degree in software engineering by Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in 1998. In 2000, the Watts Humphrey Software Quality Institute was named in his honor in Chennai, India, and the Boeing Company presented him with an award for leadership and innovation in software process improvement.
Where did all the process improvement go?
Michael West
Introduction:
These days, it seems that the process improvement life cycle has only two phases: 1) get trained in some model or method, then 2) have an appraisal, audit, or some other form of a “test.” Study for the test, take the test; study, test, and so on until everyone gets the right answers and the organization is done with process improvement. Blinded by a lust for ratings or scores such as maturity levels, organizations have lost sight of the real benefits of the process improvement journey. Spiced with humor and irony, this keynote address takes a candid look at the current state of model-based process improvement and where this industry is headed. It is a call to action to make a positive change in how we all perceive and execute process improvement.
Biography:
Michael West has over 25 years experience in software and systems development and engineering management, and more than 10 years in model-based process improvement. Mr. West is author of Real Process Improvement Using the CMMI (Auerbach, 2004), and has delivered numerous presentations on process improvement at national conferences such as the SEI's SEPG Conference and the NDIA's CMMI Users Conference.
In 2002, Mr. West and his business partners established the process improvement consultancy Natural SPI, a small, woman-owned business and an SEI Partner. Natural SPI has developed and implemented innovative, cost-effective methods that help their clients achieve process and performance improvement goals.
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