Conference Presentations

Cultivating High-Performing Teams

A high performance, self-governing team is a prerequisite for delivering better software products more quickly. Unfortunately, developing such a team is neither simple nor linear. It requires exceptional leadership to build and maintain a team on which everyone is focused on accomplishing a common goal. While high-performing teams may appear "headless," managing a collected group of experts requires a role typically more associated with a relationship manager than a project manager. Based on her consulting experiences and on Dr. David Kolb's five-phase leadership model, Bobbi Underbakke discusses the skills and techniques software managers and project leaders must have to maximize their team's capabilities and speed. Learn innovative ways to guide, motivate, and inspire your team rather than trying to monitor and control them.

Bobbi Underbakke, Adaptive Team Collaboration, Inc.
Secure Software is a Management Issue, Too!

Development teams are entering a new era of software development. Security will play a critical role because traditional development practices are failing in the face of poor software quality and constant hacker attacks. As a manager, you are under pressure to write more secure, higher quality software while at the same time reducing operational costs. How can you incorporate the latest in software security development practices and stay within mandated budgets? And how do you justify higher budgets in the face of uncertain security risks? Join Djenana Campara for a manager’s view of software security issues. Become more proactive in the treatment of software security vulnerabilities, and help protect your company's core assets from external security threats.

Djenana Campara, Klocwork Inc
Lipstick on a Pig - How Illusion Leads to Crisis in Real World Projects

Change, ambiguity, and risk are key issues whether you are running a software project, managing a development team, or leading an entire organization. We learn it over and over again. It's not a matter of "if" change will happen-it's a matter of "when." When a crisis inevitably arrives, how do you respond? As Jerry Weinberg observed in The Secrets of Consulting, "It may look like a crisis, but it's only the end of an illusion." Andy Kaufman looks at key project illusions that threaten success as we lead projects and people in the realm of software development. Whether you're a project team member or a senior executive, Andy provides practical tips you can immediately apply in your organization.

Andy Kaufman, Institute for Leadership Excellence and Development
The Return on Investment for Finding Defects in Test

For testers, finding defects is a way of life. However, we usually don't reflect on what an undiscovered defect can cost a business or how much it costs to find defects late in development. Geoff Horne seeks to put real costs on both of these situations and looks at practical ways to reduce the costs of not finding defects. With real-life case studies that you can use to justify the need for more testing, Geoff provides simple measures and statistics to calculate whether your allocation of testing dollars is too high, too low, or just right. Learn to show how testing can actually save money and how to get the best return for your testing dollar. After all, stock market investors assess their options based on risk and potential return. Why should testing be any different?

Geoff Horne, iSQA
Software Factories: Hype or Hope for Real Advancement?

The new concept of Software Factories, as proposed by Microsoft, promises to elevate software development to the next level. Siemens is working with Microsoft to apply these approaches with the goal of improving product maintenance, quality, and time to market. Gunther Lenz explains the common elements and, more importantly, the differences between the Software Factories model and Model Driven Architecture (MDA), as proposed by the Object Management Group (OMG). Learn how UML 2.0, Domain Specific Languages, platform independence, product line development, and synchronization between models can all enter into the development process. Take away an in-depth understanding of the concept of Software Factories while leaning differences between Software Factories and MDAs.

Gunther Lenz, Siemens Corporate Research, Inc.
Model Driven Architecture (MDA) - What's in it for Developers and Testers?

According to the Object Management Group (OMG), the benefits of Model Driven Architecture (MDA) are significant to businesses and developers alike: reduced overall product life costs, faster development, better application quality, rapid deployment of new technology, and a higher ROI on new technology. In short, the hype is that MDA enables system integration strategies that are better, faster, and cheaper. However, the MDA approach represents a fundamental change in the way software is developed, and it revolutionizes how you allocate test resources and how you create system tests. Timothy Korson outlines the MDA process and then suggests ways to change quality assurance activities to mesh with the MDA development style. Take away a realistic view of the current state of MDA practices compared to the MDA promise and vision, offered by the OMG.

Timothy Korson, QualSys Solutions
Managing and Sizing Functional Requirements

The ability to clearly define user requirements is critical to the overall success of many software projects. You need effective requirements development and management skills and processes to identify, describe, and record the functions requested by end users. With these in place you have the information necessary to assess project complexity and make reasonable size and effort estimates. David Herron describes reliable requirements gathering and documentation techniques including context diagrams, use cases, and mind maps. He discusses function point analysis as a software sizing methodology used by leading edge companies. These techniques, together with the associated tools and templates, provide you with the elements you need to more effectively develop, manage, and measure software requirements.

  • Sizing functional requirements for project planning
David Herron, The David Consulting Group
Key Project Planning and Testing Issues for Internationalization

When preparing for internationalization of software, officially called W3C Internationalization (I18N), preparation and careful planning are the keys to high productivity during and after the initial development project. By putting in more effort up front, less effort will be required in subsequent localization activities. Also, I18N pseudo-localization testing will help you ensure that you can deliver localized versions of your product in the least amount of time. Learn about the important issues surrounding internationalization: translation verification, double character, Unicode, multi-currency, local culture concerns, native language support, and more. Find out how to perform localization testing without an in-depth knowledge of locale specific issues or native linguistic skills. Help your organization succeed in the challenging work of internationalization while your team keeps its sanity as well.

Alym Rayani, The Symbio Group
Building a Winning Team: Hiring, Developing, and Nurturing Your People

With the changing landscape of software development, it is vital to select and develop people who will help your team excel. To do so, you must operate much the way a winning coach in a highly competitive sport selects and develops players with the right mix of talents and skills. Then, you need to organize the team so that the "players" are in the roles that will allow them to best contribute to the team's success. Learn the secrets of role-based team construction that will allow your group to deliver a consistently high level of performance. Enable your team to increase the scope of problems and challenges that they can tackle-and have fun accomplishing. Find out about the characteristics and dynamics of winning teams and winning team leadership, and take back a model for building and improving your team.

  • Goals, strategies, and plans for developing a winning team
Kevin Bodie, Pitney Bowes Inc
Agile and Adaptive Project Management - The Declaration of Interdependence

Whereas the Agile Software Development Manifesto is a short and sweet list of principles for developers, the Declaration of Interdependence for Agile Project Management is more of a mouthful. The Declaration of Interdependence was written to provide concrete guidance for software projects and projects in general with applicability to general management. In constructing it, a dozen senior consultants, designers, and managers-project, product, and line-validated that it covered their individual core operating frameworks. In this talk, noted software designer, manager, and methodologist Alistair Cockburn, a co-author of both documents, unravels the six rules of operation in the Declaration of Interdependence. In the Declaration, project managers agree to increase ROI, deliver reliable results, expect uncertainty, unleash creativity and innovation, boost performance, and improve effectiveness.

Alistair Cockburn, Humans and Technology, Inc.

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