Archived Presentations - 2005

February 2005

  • Topic: The Quest for Excellent Requirements
  • Description: Learn how to involve the user by applying Stakeholder and User Profiles and including the users in the process.
  • Roxanne E. Miller, the principal consultant at Requirements Quest, has been consulting and training for ten years. Roxanne has many years of experience with requirements engineering and management, software development, change management, software testing, facilitation, and leading process improvement and quality improvement activities. She has consulted for several international banks and insurance companies in the United States, and national banks in Brazil and Portugal.

March 2005

  • Topic: The Successful Project: How Will I Know It When I See It?
  • Description: How do you measure project success? This presentation discussed what is meant by project success, and how that can be measured.
  • Paula Duchnowski is the Project Office Manager for Winterthur North America (WNA). Her team has responsibilities for ISD project work done at all WNA operations, including General Casualty Insurance here in Sun Prairie, Unigard Insurance in Seattle, Washington and Southern Guarantee Insurance in Montgomery, Alabama. Paula is a Project Management Professional (PMP) and in her current role is focused on software development and project management methodologies.
  • Powerpoint: Click here: The Successful Project to see a web version of Paula's presentation.

April 2005

  • Topic: Open-Source Tools for Web Testing: Watir and Selenium
  • Description: Bret Pettichord and Jason Huggins presented demonstrations of two open-source testing tools developed by Thoughtworks. Watir is a web testing tool in the Ruby language; it interacts with the COM interface of Internet Explorer and has built-in support for accessing databases. Selenium is a server-side installed tool in JavaScript which supports Firefox, Mozilla, and IE (so far). More information is available about these free tools at the Watir and Selenium websites.
  • Bret Pettichord consults on software testing and test automation for Thoughtworks and is the co-author of Lessons Learned in Software Testing. Jason Huggins is also a consultant with Thoughtworks and is a Selenium developer.

May 2005

  • Topic:“Forces and Behaviors Inhibiting Quality”
  • Description: There is a basic psychological principle stating behaviors that are rewarded will be repeated. When a behavior is no longer rewarded it will eventually be extinguished. The adage what gets measured gets done is only partially correct. When there are measurements without consequences (or rewards) and/or what is being rewarded is different from what is being measured, then the wrong behaviors will be exhibited. To really understand an organization one must understand what behaviors are being rewarded. When the wrong behaviors are rewarded, it is impossible to implement quality programs. The presentation will focus on behaviors preventing the implementation of quality programs:
    • Enforcement without consequences
    • “Negotiable” estimates
    • The method software projects are priced and billed
    • Managing Up v. Managing
    • Rewarding the wrong behaviors

    For more details on the presentation, please go to the presenter's website.

  • David Longstreet, a software economist, is an international consultant with clients in every corner of the globe. With over 20 years of IT experience, he has consulted in the USA, Europe, Asia, The Middle East and South Africa.

June 2005

  • Topic: “Outsourcing: Fighting Back”
  • Description: We all agree that just because they are cheaper doesn't make them better. But how do we convince and “sell” our management? Management assumes equal productivity and 100% quality at ¼ the price. How can we “make our case” before it is too late?
  • Highlights
    • Understanding the competition's strengths.
    • Selling vs. Problem Solving (Cowboys vs. Indians? vs. Warriors?)
    • How do Outsourcers do it? What does Management really want? Right now?
    • Example Reports
    • Lessons Learned?
    • e.g. Estimating: "What is the probability the project will be done early?"
    • New Certification for software test measurement

    • For more details on the presentation, you can see the PowerPoint presentation here.

  • Bill Hufschmidt is President of and Professional Metrics Consultant for Development Support Center, Inc. Now in their 19th year, Bill and the Development support Center have assisted with the implementation of Measurement programs worldwide in over 250 companies and organizations covering over a dozen industries. Bill helped establish IFPUG (International Function Points User Group), gave it its name, and served multiple terms on the Board and several committees. He has been a keynote or featured speaker at SIM, QAI, ASM, CASMA, CQAA, FESMA, PSQT, IFPUG, ISFMA, and other regional, national and international Productivity, Quality and Measurement forums. Bill holds a BA in Economics and has been named to Who's Who in American Business.

August 2005

  • Topic: IEEE Standards for Software Engineering
  • Description: Do you get confused and intimidated when thinking of the IEEE standards for software engineering? If so, this presentation should make you feel more at ease in understanding the purpose and nature of the most popular and helpful of the standards, including:
    • IEEE 12207 for Software Life Cycle Methodologies
    • IEEE 830 for Software Requirements Specifications
    • IEEE 829 for Software Test Documentation
    • IEEE 1012 for Software Verification and Validation
    Randy Rice will discuss how these standards relate to each other, how they can give you a jump start on defining your own processes and deliverables, how you can tailor them to meet your needs, and most importantly, how to apply them to your projects.
  • A PDF of the slideshow for this presentation is available here.
  • Randy Rice, vice president of Rice Consulting, is a well-known speaker on software quality topics. He's appeared at many conferences and is the co-author of Surviving the Top Ten Challenges of Software Testing.

September 2005

  • Topic: Real-World Software Project Estimation

  • Technologies and methodologies come and go, but the question stays the same: “Are we there yet?”

    How your software-development shop prepares estimates, and manages estimation risk, largely determines the quality of your products and your quality of life. This presentation will touch on the following topics:

    1. Estimation techniques we (still) use at Berbee
    2. What our own measurements (and our instincts) tell us about the limits to estimation accuracy
    3. How to structure projects so they can absorb less-than-perfect estimates without disaster

    This is meant to be highly practical, with just enough underlying concepts to help you translate these practices from other environments into your own.

    Robert Merrill has been with Berbee's Application Development Group since 1997; his first foray into project estimation at Berbee led to the cancellation of his boss' pet project. In a previous career, he developed techniques to predict the wind speeds of hurricanes, and he never publicly blamed a hurricane for failing to conform to the forecast. If only software projects were afforded a similar courtesy.

October 2005

  • Topic: Usability & User Centered Design
  • Jeff provided a general overview about usability, user centered design, user experience and related concepts
  • General overview of user centered design principles
  • Usability evaluations & testing (different types, when to use them, pros and cons, etc.)
  • Accessibility (what is it, why you should care, why it's hard to test for, etc.)
  • a few words about the upcoming World Usability Day.

Jeff Horvath got his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After graduating, he spent time as a Learning Architect at Accenture in St. Charles, IL, then as the User Centered Design Lead at Berbee in Madison, WI. In January of 2004, Jeff left Berbee to start his own company, Informed Balance. Informed Balance is a design consultancy which helps clients plan for and design products and solutions that balance the needs of users, business, and technology. While at Informed Balance, Jeff has worked with clients such as American Family Insurance, American Girl, and TDS Telecom.

Jeff's slide presentation can be reviewed: User Centered Design 101

November 2005

  • Topic: How a Hacker Tests Your Web Applications for Security Defects Workshop

  • It's been estimated that three-fourths of today's successful system hacks are perpetrated not via network security flaws, but by entering directly through the "front door" - exploiting defects in customer-facing web applications. Best practices suggest that security assessment processes should start right from the initiation of an application project. However, majority of applications tend to be pushed into production with little or no security testing. Testing applications for security defects at every phase of the development lifecycle should be an essential part of today's testing environment. This session will focus on quality assurance testing for defects at the application layer, such as SQL Injection, Session Hijacking and Cross-Site Scripting. In addition, the session will cover new techniques for testing browser delivered applications and common tools used for web application testing. Clint Hatton, Senior Security Engineer, S.P.I. Dynamics Incorporated.

Clint Hatton is a senior security engineer for SPI Dynamics, (www.spidynamics.com), the expert in web application security assessment and testing. He has over 20 years experience in the information technology industry. Prior to joining SPI Dynamics, Clint worked for Sanctum (which was acquired by Watchfire in 2004) where his roles included web application security auditor, strategic alliances partner development, trainer, and sales engineer. Prior to his role at Watchfire, Clint was also the director of Data Center Operations at Pilot Network Services where he was responsible for the day to day technical operations of a security focused ISP. In addition, Clint was a senior project manager for IBM Global Services, and manager of network and telecom technologies at GTECH Corporation. In his spare time, Clint recently founded an organization that refurbishes used and donated corporate computer equipment, provides the equipment, training, and support to the elderly and needy.

 

Home | Top