Preconference In-Depth Tutorials

Each selection runs a full day and includes lunch.
Tutorials are interactive and hands-on. Class sizes are limited, and seating is first-come, first-served.

Tutorials for Tuesday, September 28, 8:30-5:00

H	Waltzing with Bears — Managing Risk on Software Projects Tim Lister, Atlantic Systems Guild Software risk management is a necessity whether you like it or not. Software projects are full of risk these days due to complexity, tight budgets, even tighter schedules, and a host of technology issues. At the same time, your business and your customers have higher and higher expectations for the value of the software produced. The confluence of these factors makes software project ''failures'' a common result in the eyes of many stakeholders. Unfortunately, you can’t avoid most risks — they are inherent in the work and are attached to the value of the delivered product. In this dynamic, interactive class, Tim Lister helps you learn to court risk and make it your friend rather than ignore it or look fruitlessly for ways to avoid it. He describes a proven risk management approach for software projects and offers a free tool, Riskology, to help you implement risk management in your organization. Learn how to map risks into the political and cultural context of your organization and how to use this information to quantify, mitigate, and contain inevitable software risks.
	About the Instructor Tim Lister divides his time between consulting, teaching, and writing and is co-author with Tom DeMarco, of Waltzing with Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects. Tim was a member of the Airlie Software Council (1993-2000), a group of sixteen industry consultants, advising the DoD on best practices for software development and acquisition. Currently Tim is a member of the Cutter Trends Council, a group offering opinions on trends in the software industry. Tim Lister and Tom DeMarco are also co-authors of Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, 2nd edition.

I	Thirty Project Management Best Practices Karl Wiegers, Process Impact Managing software projects is difficult under the best of circumstances. You can reduce the difficulty and improve your chances of success by applying proven industry practices for software project management. These best practices are based on industry studies of successful and failed projects and on Karl Wiegers’ personal experiences. Topics range from planning and estimating to project tracking and organizational learning activities. Learn how to lay the foundation for success before your project starts. Hear practical details on how to incorporate software risk management and the Wideband Delphi estimation method into your work. You’ll have the opportunity to try many of these techniques through short practice sessions. Small group discussions will help you identify which of the best practices presented will be useful solutions to your project management challenges.
	About the Instructor Karl Wiegers is the Principal Consultant at Process Impact, a software process consulting and education company. Karl is the author of Software Requirements, 2nd Edition, Peer Reviews in Software: A Practical Guide, and Creating a Software Engineering Culture, as well as 160 articles on software development, chemistry, and military history. Karl has served on the editorial board for IEEE Software magazine and as a contributing editor to Software Development magazine. He is a frequent speaker at software conferences and professional society meetings.

J	Introduction to Test-Driven Development (TDD) Elisabeth Hendrickson, Quality Tree Software, Inc.; Rob Mee, Pivotal Computer Systems; and Christian Sepulveda, GaiaCom Corporation With the growing popularity of eXtreme Programming (XP) and other agile development methods, more and more programmers are adopting Test-Driven Development (TDD) as a power technique for preventing defects and catching bugs early. But TDD is much more. In this experiential tutorial, the instructors lead you through a series of interactive exercises giving you a chance to ''try'' TDD without programming. This tutorial is a great opportunity for software managers, testing and QA personnel, and others to get a feel for how and why TDD works without having to learn a new programming language. You’ll get an overview of TDD, how it differs from ''traditional'' unit testing, and how it fits into the XP practices. During the session, you’ll also see a demonstration of programming test-first and participate in a low-tech simulation to explore how TDD works. Find out how to adopt TDD in your environment, including discussions about common stumbling blocks, solutions, and tools available for TDD.
	About the Instructors Elisabeth Hendrickson is an independent consultant specializing in software quality and management. In the software field since 1988, Elisabeth has at one time or another been a tester, test automator, technical writer, programmer, and manager (sometimes simultaneously), she is the founder and president of Quality Tree Software, Inc. An award-winning author, Elisabeth has published more than 20 articles and is a frequently invited speaker at major software quality and software management conferences.
	Rob Mee is a founder of Pivotal Computer Systems, a consulting company specializing in software development and mentoring using Agile methods. Rob is one of the most experienced coaches in the eXtreme Programming community. He is a regular author and lecturer on XP and test-driven development, and was recently an invited speaker at Brazil's first annual XP conference.
	Christian Sepulveda was co-founder of the GaiaCom Corporation, a New York based consulting and outsourcing software development firm. He's been an independent consultant for the last four years, focusing on mentoring and leading software teams. He's worked in a diverse set of industries, from finance to fashion, on both commercial shrink-wrapped software and internal IT applications. He is a Certified Scrum Master and Extreme Programming coach that has led over thirty successful projects.

K	Software Engineering Optimization: Measuring and Managing Change Ram Chillarege, Chillarege Inc. Technical leaders and software managers face constant changes in the technology and processes used to develop and deliver applications. How do we optimize the performance of the software engineering function? What are the measures needed to evaluate these changes? And what are the ways to drive greater productivity and customer satisfaction through the software engineering functions? Ram Chillarege provides you with the tools to recognize and measure the efficiencies gained from technological advances and process improvement efforts. In a closely related dimension, he shows you how to use the appropriate measurements to assess and manage your projects. Discover where the optimization opportunities are in your organization, and learn what to do when things don’t work out — and see how to rapidly diagnose and correct the problems. You’ll also find out whether your engineering processes match the needs of your customers.
	About the Instructor Ram Chillarege is the inventor of Orthogonal Defect Classification (ODC). He recently opened the doors on Chillarege Inc.; 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.

L	Software Management — Practices and Practice for Success Johanna Rothman, Rothman Consulting Group, Inc. Many managers started their careers as technical people, and then were promoted to ''management'' with little or no training. The technical work was challenging, but the management work—exercising those ''soft'' skills—is probably the hardest thing you have to do. If you’ve been managing for a while and are frustrated by your management role or simply want to get to the next level, join in the discussion and practice the skills you need to become a great manager. If you’re a new software lead or manager, come learn what you need to do in order to become a great manager. In this hands-on session, you’ll learn to define a personal mission and how to decide what’s strategically important for you, your team, and your organization. You’ll find new ways to create an effective work environment, hire the best people available, and help people do their best work. You’ll learn about and practice effective one-on-one communication, evaluating people, and even when and how to deal with those who won’t or can’t perform. Perhaps, most importantly, you’ll take away new insights in how to manage yourself and when your personal behavior is constructive or destructive.
	About the Instructor Johanna Rothman speaks, writes, and consults on managing high technology product development, helping managers, teams, and organizations become more effective. Johanna uses pragmatic techniques for managing people, projects, and risk to create successful teams and projects. A frequent speaker and author on managing high technology product development, Johanna has written numerous articles and is now a columnist for Software Development, Computerworld.com, and StickyMinds.com. Johanna is the author of Hiring Technical People and is a member of the clinical faculty of The Gordon Institute at Tufts University.

M	Writing Detailed Requirements David Gelperin, ClearSpecs Enterprises The final, detailed requirements specifications are eventually recorded in the software itself. Even though detailed requirements are inevitable, you can choose when and how they first appear and how they impact the software development lifecycle. For many projects, writing detailed, accurate and unambiguous requirements early in the process will reduce rework and speed up the project. This tutorial focuses on five techniques for recording essential requirements details early in the project: definitions and known facts, action contracts with ''actors'', precise use cases, user acceptance test specifications, and quality specifications. Each technique contributes understandable precision to one aspect of the requirements puzzle. When used in combination, they support the early development of a common understanding of the real requirements among project stakeholders.
	About the Instructor David Gelperin is CTO & President of ClearSpecs Enterprises in Minneapolis, MN. He has more than 35 years experience in software engineering with an emphasis on software quality, verification, and testing and software process engineering. David cofounded Software Quality Engineering. He chaired the development of both ANSI/IEEE standards on software testing 829 on software test documentation and 1008 on software unit testing. David received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Ohio State University.

N	Software Process Improvement Practices Ed Weller, Software Technology Transition With the proliferation of process models (CMM®, CMMI®, ISO, Six Sigma, XP, Agile) and various certification and assessment methods, it is easy to lose sight of what processes and process improvement are all about: improving the organization’s ability to compete in today’s fast-paced, demanding business environment. Process is a means to the end, not the end itself. How do we evaluate, select, and implement and measure the “right” process to enable our organization to meet its business challenges? Ed Weller will explore the ins and outs of process improvement, with an emphasis on the CMM®/CMMI® models, always keeping the desired end result in focus: improving our ability to meet the current and future needs of our business.   CMM®, CMMI® and Capability Maturity Model® are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by Carnegie Mellon University.
	About the Instructor Ed Weller has over 35 years of software and systems development experience, and has been involved in and led software process improvement actions since the mid-80’s. He is an authorized instructor for the SEI’s Introduction to the SW-CMM® and CMMI® and is a lead assessor/appraiser for both process models.

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