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Essential Software Quality Planning An old-yet still true-saying is "You can't test quality into a software product." By planning for the quality expected in your software, your team and management will focus on the big picture-integrating development methods, the test processes, and the customer and product requirements within the framework of a quality assurance perspective. Starting with the key element of quality planning and its benefits, Tony Raymond explains how to derive quality objectives from requirements using a "just enough" balanced approach. He introduces methods to confirm that the development lifecycle processes are consistent with quality objectives and discusses the relationship of the quality plan to the test plan. Take back examples of quality planning and test planning templates to use in your next project.
- How to define "just enough" quality objectives
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Tony Raymond, New Harbor Technical Management
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Common Scheduling Mistakes and How to Avoid Them A project schedule is an essential tool for planning the project, monitoring progress, managing the impact of changes to scope and requirements, and ultimately achieving customer satisfaction. Unfortunately, three common mistakes can make schedules useless-or worse, even destructive to the project: (1) using date constraints when dependencies should be used; (2) using dependencies when resource constraints should be used; and (3) poorly structured work breakdown structures. Using a sample project schedule that has these common scheduling mistakes, Kenneth Katz illustrates their impact through different scenarios for handling them. He shows how revising the schedules with the right practices will result in benefits to the project and the team. Learn how project schedules can become a positive force in your projects.
- Project schedules that easily accommodate scope and resource change
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Kenneth Katz, DST Output
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Fishing for Requirements in an Agile Project When you go fishing, you want to use the right lures, catch lots of fish, and avoid falling out of the boat. Developing requirements for an Agile project is similar-you need to use the right process, get the requirements you need with minimum effort, and introduce minimal risk and rework. Because every Agile project has different needs, goals, and constraints, a "one size fits all" requirements process does not work in every Agile project. In this interactive session, Jennitta Andrea shows you how to fine tune the requirements process based on a unique set of project characteristics. Learn to visualize the distinctive characteristics of a project to determine what work products to produce, how much detail to include, and which tools will provide a payback to the project.
- Strategies for shaping your Agile requirements process
- How much documentation you really need
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Jennitta Andrea, Clearstream Consulting, Inc.
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Into the Crystal Ball - Emerging Trends in Plan-Driven Development Plan-driven development is challenged today by Agile methods, outsourcing trends, and a new emphasis on IT governance and program management. The days of straightforward software development projects are over as project managers must deal with delivery pressure from customers and the marketplace, teams distributed around the globe, and an increase in management and regulatory reporting. Using insight from her years of consulting, Carol Dekkers explores these challenges and recommends ways to adapt your practices. Learn how to realistically plan your future projects using benchmarking information such as ISBSG (International Software Benchmarking Standards Group) data together with knowledge about emerging trends. Take back a new appreciation of what constitutes “good enough” project planning today and learn to survive in this brave new world.
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Carol Dekkers, Quality Plus Technologies Inc
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Mentoring for Rookie (and Experienced) Managers In the same way that every athlete needs a coach to help him develop and perfect their skills, software managers and technical leads need mentors to help them improve his leadership and management skills. Working with an effective coach should be part of every manager's personal career development plan. With his proven track record of identifying and developing strong technical managers, Kevin Bodie discusses how to find and recruit personal mentors. He also explains how to become a great mentor yourself. Learn what you can expect from a mentor, what your mentor will expect from you, and practical techniques for mentoring and coaching others. Take away tools to build and keep leading-edge management skills and ways to assess the results of mentoring.
- Effective selection and recruiting of coaches and mentors
- Mentoring techniques that really work
- How to keep developing as a manager
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Kevin Bodie, Pitney Bowes Inc
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Unintended Consequences of a Capability Maturity Mismatch--Evidence from a Quality Audit In this presentation Michael Harris describes the findings of a quality assurance audit (PPQA) of the offshore outsourcing arm of a major U.S. software development company in late 2005. As the executive in charge of much of the development and as a member of the PPQA audit team, the Michael has a singular perspective on the expectations and the reality of the project. This presentation explores one particular aspect of the audit findings-the manifestations of the different CMMI® maturity levels of the onshore and offshore organizations. Take away suggestions for taking advantage of this mismatch situation instead of suffering from it.
- Review a quality assurance audit (PPQA)
- Explore the different CMMI® maturity levels of onshore and offshore organizations
- Take advantage of mismatched outsourcing situations
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Michael Harris, David Consulting Group
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Risk Managment on an Agile Project Plan-driven software project management is very specific on how to identify and manage risks. When moving to Agile software development practices, what happens to all the risk management activities that project managers used to oversee? Contrary to what many expect, there are Agile risk management practices that reduce risk by providing opportunities for the team to identify, monitor, and control risk events. For each of the traditional risk management areas-identification, analysis, response planning, and monitoring and controlling-you will learn the corresponding Agile approach. In keeping with Agile's strengths, team involvement and collaboration are key inputs into the risk management process. Michele Sliger explains how and when to involve the team in identifying risks, analyzing the opportunities and threats, mitigating as appropriate, and monitoring these risks throughout the lifetime of the Agile project.
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Michele Sliger, Rally Software Development
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Retrospectives: Five Years Beyond the Book Project
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Norm Kerth, Elite Systems
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There's Always Time for Pragmatic Project Planning "Plan your work. Work your plan." Or, "Plan? Plan? We don't need no stinkin' plan." Which is the best approach for your software project? According to Robert Galen, neither is the right answer. Because software projects are expensive and challenging, you need a pragmatic project plan-one that is concise, targeted, useful, used, and adaptive. Beginning with a chartering process that leads to a high level project strategy, stakeholders determine the critical success factors and where to focus their planning activities. Robert describes the use of "Sticky Note Planning" workshops to develop and, more importantly, to maintain pragmatic plans as living documents. Learn from Robert what to monitor in your project, what milestones to set, and what the important drivers should be for adjusting the plan. Make planning one of the top contributors to the success of your project.
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Robert Galen, RGCG, LLC
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There's Always Time for Pragmatic Project Planning "Plan your work. Work your plan." Or, "Plan? Plan? We don't need no stinkin' plan." Which is the best approach for your software project? According to Robert Galen, neither is the right answer. Because software projects are expensive and challenging, you need a pragmatic project plan-one that is concise, targeted, useful, used, and adaptive. Beginning with a chartering process that leads to a high level project strategy, stakeholders determine the critical success factors and where to focus their planning activities. Robert describes the use of "Sticky Note Planning" workshops to develop and, more importantly, to maintain pragmatic plans as living documents. Learn from Robert what to monitor in your project, what milestones to set, and what the important drivers should be for adjusting the plan. Make planning one of the top contributors to the success of your project.
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Robert Galen, RGCG, LLC
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