Managing software projects is difficult even under the best circumstances. You can reduce the difficulty and improve your chances of success by applying known industry best practices for software project management. These practices are based on industry studies of successful and failed projects, and on the speaker’s personal experiences. This session presents 30 such best practices, grouped into categories such as the foundation for success, planning the project, estimating the work, tracking progress, and learning for the future. Attendees can try out many of these techniques during short practice sessions.

 
About the Instructor
Karl Wiegers is the principal consultant at Process Impact, a software process consulting and education company. Karl’s most recent book is Peer Reviews in Software: A Practical Guide. He also wrote Software Requirements and Creating a Software Engineering Culture — both of which won Productivity Awards from Software Development magazine, and more than 135 articles on software development, chemistry, and military history. Karl has served as a member of the editorial board for IEEE Software magazine. He’s a frequent speaker at software conferences and professional society meetings.

David Card explains some of the most widely used techniques for measuring and modeling software product quality. Learn a method for selecting the techniques most relevant to a specific project, and discover how to use the resulting information in management decision making. In this tutorial, simple statistical techniques are presented to address functional correctness, complexity, reliability, and customer satisfaction. The approach satisfies the requirements of the Software Quality Management key process area of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), and it also can be implemented outside a CMM context.

 
About the Instructor
David Card is a fellow of the Software Productivity Consortium. A former director of software process and measurement at Computer Sciences Corporation, he is co-editor of the ISO/IEC standard 15939 Software Measurement Process and author of the book Measuring Software Design Quality. He’s also co-author of Practical Software Measurement.

The problems that result from ambiguous and incorrect requirements are a major source of software failure. Getting the right user requirements, and getting them quickly, is critical to your success. In this tutorial, learn how to use appropriate models to define correct user requirements based on your business requirements. You'll also learn valuable collaborative techniques that streamline the process, saving time and creating buy-in among users, developers, and QA specialists. This is a hands-on tutorial where you'll participate in simulated collaborative workshops with business users. Veteran facilitator Ellen Gottesdiener teaches youhow to employ best practices that promote quality while accelerating the requirements process.

 
About the Instructor
Ellen Gottesdiener, principal of EBGConsulting, Inc., is a pioneer in business rule-driven requirements workshops, and has been helping people to collaboratively define and verify business, user, and technical requirements for 23 years. Ellen presents at numerous industry conferences and has authored many papers on requirements, workshops, methods, and modeling. Herbook, Requirements Workshops: A Collaborative Approach to Defining User Requirements, is forthcoming from Addison Wesley.

Elisabeth Hendrickson and Johanna Rothman examine a series of difficult interactions between members of software project teams. They demonstrate proven techniques for handling everyday issues such as bad news, obstinate peers, how to say “no,” and ways to effectively influence others’ behavior — even when you have no authority over them. This is an experiential workshop format where attendees have the opportunity to participate and practice the communication skills they’ve learned during the presentation.

 
About the Instructors
Elisabeth Hendricksons is an independent consultant specializing insoftware quality assurance, management, and testing. She hasmore than 12 years of experience working with leading software companies. An award-winning author, Elisabeth has more than 20 published articles and is a frequently invited speaker at major software quality and software management conferences.

Need to prop up your presentation skills? This tutorial will bolster your presentations and your confidence. Whether public speaking gives you anxiety attacks, or you’d just like a few pointers on handling questions with finesse, Lenny Laskowski has specific techniques and tips for creating, structuring, and presenting your best side. You’ll also learn about visual aids, gestures, and speaking postures. He even shares physical and mental techniques you can use to reduce your speech anxiety.

 
About the Instructor
Lenny Laskowsk is an internationally known professional speaker and the president of L JLSeminars. He is a member of the National Speakers Association and the NSA-New England Speakers Association. Lenny’s expertise includes presentation skills, communication skills, and strategic Internet marketing. His books, CD-based programs, audiotapes, and videotapes have helped thousands of people inmore than 110 countries become better presenters. Lenny’snewest book, 10 Days to More Confident Public Speaking, was released in July 2001. His articles regularly appear in magazines and newsletters around the world.

We don’t manage, measure, or make decisions in a vacuum. Software managers must base their decisions on product needs, the processes and resources available, and quality concerns. But software isn’t the only industry that has to make decisions withina business context. In this tutorial, Shari Lawrence Pfleeger uses examples from business, public policy, and social science as well as information technology to illustrate and extract universal tactics on how to make good decisions. By applying these techniques to software development and maintenance problems, participants can produce better estimates, reduce risk, and demonstrate more confidence in their ability to choose the right course of action.

 
About the Instructor
Shari Lawrence Pfleeger is president of Systems/Software, Inc., a consultancy specializing in software engineering and technology. Shari is well known for her work in empirical studies of software engineering, and her clients include many international corporations. She is currently associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.A popular speaker, author, and instructor, she has been named repeatedly by the Journal of Systems and Software as one of the world’s top software engineering researchers.

This session offers a practical process for establishing and tailoring a software metrics program that focuses on goals and information needs. It’s a practical, systematic, start-to-finish method of selecting, designing, and implementing software metrics; it even outlines a “cookbook method” you can use to simplify the journey from conceptual software metrics to delivered information. Linda Westfall walks you through the many areas of selected metrics, including definitions, models, counting criteria, benchmarks, objectives, reporting mechanisms, and additional qualifiers.

 
About the Instructor
Linda Westfall is president of The Westfall Team, which provides software metrics and software quality engineering training and consulting services to software organizations. Linda has more than 20 years of experience in real-time software engineering, quality, and metrics. She’s also chair of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) Software Division, and has served as the Software Division’s program chair and certification chair as well as on the ASQ National Certification Board.

Are you down with ODC? Orthogonal Defect Classification (ODC) is evolving into the de facto standard for measurement through software defects. ODC extracts information from software defects to yield quantitative measurements on products and processes. This data is then used for a variety of project management and risk assessment activities. The use of ODC for test strategy enhancement has also gained considerable popularity. Root Cause Analysis programs have benefited by cost savings of a factor of 10. This tutorial provides an overview of ODC technology, plus work examples to familiarize you with Version 5.1 ODC, introductory analysis sessions, and implementation methods.

 
About the Instructor
Ram Chillarege is the inventor of Orthogonal Defect Classification (ODC). He recently opened the doors on Chillarege Corp., a firm that helps companies successfully blend technology and business. His accomplishments include a broad range of roles in technical leadership, product delivery, and organizational leadership. While at IBM, Ram founded and headed the Center for Software Engineering at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center. He’s an IEEE fellow, and has published more than 50 technical articles. He serves on the steering and program committees for conferences pertaining to software engineering and dependability.