Welcome to the Software Process and Measurement Cast 126

SPaMCAST 126 features my interview with Phillip A. LaPlante discussing his book Requirements Engineering for Software and Systems in specific and requirements in general.  A real powerhouse discussion of requirements.

Dr. Phil Laplante is Professor of Software Engineering at Penn State. His interests are in software and systems engineering, project management, and software testing and security. Prior to his academic career Dr. Laplante spent several years as a software engineer and project manager working on avionics, computer aided design and software test systems. He has authored or edited 27 books and has published more than 200 scholarly papers. Recently, he was named by the National Council of Engineering Examiners to Chair the committee that will develop the examination, which will be used to license Professional Engineers in the practice of Software Engineering.

Laplante received his B.S., M.Eng., and Ph.D. in Systems Planning & Management, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science, respectively, from Stevens Institute of Technology and an MBA from the University of Colorado. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and SPIE and a member of numerous other professional societies, program committees, and boards. He is a licensed professional engineer in Pennsylvania and a Certified Software Development Professional.

Email: plaplante@gv.psu.edu
Website: http://www.personal.psu.edu/pal11/

Remember:

This podcast will post at the beginning of the SEPG NA in Portland, Oregon, March 21-24, 2011 http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sepg/na/2011/index.cfm  I will be attending the conference and manning the David Consulting Booth.   Look me up!

I will be speaking at the QAI Quest 2011 in Boston April 6 - 8 http://www.qaiquest.org/boston/
If you are attending and would like to get together just drop me a note, text, tweet or phone call!

Shameless Ad for my book!

Mastering Software Project Management: Best Practices, Tools and Techniques co-authored by Murali Chematuri and myself and published by J. Ross Publishing. We have received unsolicited reviews like the following: "This book will prove that software projects should not be a tedious process, neither for you or your team."
 
Have you bought your copy?

Contact information for the Software Process and Measurement Cast
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Next!
SPaMCAST 127 I will  begin reading my paper on PMOs in an Agile Organization titled "Agile is from Venus and PMOs are from Mars". I promise . . . unless less another topic demands that I address it!

 

Welcome to the Software Process and Measurement Cast 71!

In SPaMCAST 71, I conclude my interview of the Suzanne Robertson.  We continued our discussion of requirements.  Requirements are the heart and soul of the software development projects.

Suzanne is co-author of Mastering the Requirements Process, Second Edition (Addison-Wesley 2006) a book that provides guidance on finding requirements and writing them so that they can be understood by all the stakeholders. She has more than 30 years experience in systems specification and building. Her courses on requirements, systems analysis, design and problem solving are well known for their innovative workshops and business games.

Suzanne has varied experience as a manager, programmer, analyst, and designer. She has consulted, done research and taught in Europe, Australia, the Far East and the United States. Current work includes research and consulting on stakeholder rights and responsibilities, the specification and reuse of requirements and techniques for assessing requirements specifications.

The product of this research is Volere, a complete requirements process and template for assessing requirements quality, and for specifying business requirements.

Contact Data:
Atlantic Systems Guild:  http://www.systemsguild.com/
Volere Requirements Resouces:  http://www.volere.co.uk/
Email:  suzanne@systemsguild.net

The essay is a continuation of my essay titled "Traceability: A Radical Approach Based on User Involvement".   Part six puts the model together and gets us ready to discuss examples in installment seven.

I have also included a promo for JC Hutchins novel 7th Son: Descent.  Great story I suggest listening and buying the book!

Join the SPaMCAST’s community by joining the SPaMCAST Facebook page and get involved!!!!  http://tinyurl.com/62z5el

There are a number of ways to share your thoughts with SPaMCAST:
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Next Software Process and Measurement Cast:
The interview in show 72 is Diana Larsen, author, teacher, and consultant.  We talked about agile and project retrospectives to name a few topics.  Incredible wit, wisdom and interview.
   

Welcome to the Software Process and Measurement Cast 70!


The interview on the SPaMCAST 70 is with Suzanne Robertson.  We talked about requirements . . . a lot and that was good therefore this part one of the interview.

Suzanne is co-author of Mastering the Requirements Process (Addison-Wesley Second Edition 2006) a book that provides guidance on finding requirements and writing them so that they can be understood by all the stakeholders. She has more than 30 years experience in systems specification and building. Her courses on requirements, systems analysis, design and problem solving are well known for their innovative workshops and business games.

Suzanne has varied experience as a manager, programmer, analyst, and designer. She has consulted, done research and taught in Europe, Australia, the Far East and the United States. Current work includes research and consulting on stakeholder rights and responsibilities, the specification and reuse of requirements and techniques for assessing requirements specifications. The product of this research is Volere, a complete requirements process and template for assessing requirements quality, and for specifying business requirements.

Contact Data:
Atlantic Systems Guild:  http://www.systemsguild.com/
Volere Requirements Resouces:  http://www.volere.co.uk/
Email:  suzanne@systemsguild.net
 
The essay is a continuation of my essay titled "Traceability: A Radical Approach Based on User Involvement".   Part Five discusses the final leg of the model criticality.   We will now have the heart of the model defined and be ready to start putting it all together.

Join the SPaMCAST’s community by joining the SPaMCAST Facebook page and get involved!!!!  http://tinyurl.com/62z5el

There are a number of ways to share your thoughts with SPaMCAST:
•    Email SPaMCAST at spamcastinfo@gmail.com
•    Voice messages can be left at 1-206-888-6111
•    Twitter – www.twitter.com/tcagley
•    BLOG – www.tcagley.wordpress.com
•    FACEBOOK!!!! Software Process and Measurement
              http://tinyurl.com/62z5el

Next Software Process and Measurement Cast:
The interview in show 71 is Part 2 of my interview with Suzanne Robertson, author, teacher, consultant and a member of The Atlantic Systems Guild.  We finished our discussion of requirements and mastering the requirements process.

Show Forty Nine concludes a two part interview with Robin Goldsmith on requirements.    If you have not already done so, please go back to show 47 to listen to the first half of the interview.  Requirements are one of those foundational components that can make or break a project as it gets started.  I believe that Robin's ideas and insights are thought provoking and that you will find them useful.  

Robin is the president of Go Pro Management.  Go Pro Management, Inc. is a consultancy that works directly with and trains professionals in business engineering, requirements analysis, software acquisition, project management, quality and testing.  Mr Goldsmith was previously a developer, systems programmer/DBA/QA, and project leader with the City of Cleveland, leading financial institutions, and a "Big 4” consulting firm.  He holds degrees from Kenyon College, A.B.; Pennsylvania State University, M.S. in Psychology; Suffolk University, J.D.; Boston University, LL.M. in Tax Law.

Robin is the author of the Artech House book, Discovering REAL Business Requirements for Software Project Success, and numerous articles in prominent periodicals, and frequent featured speaker at leading professional conferences.

Contact information:
Web Site: http://www.gopromanagement.com
Email:  RobinGoldsmith@cs.com
Phone: (781) 444-5753

Check out SPaMCAST"s Facebook page and get involved!!!!
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The essay is titled “A Game Plan For 2009”.  The essay looks to 2009 or any moment where a line can be drawn as time to celebrate change and decide to enrich the world around you (as well re-invigorating your own brand).

There are a number of ways to share your thoughts with SPaMCAST:
•    Email SPaMCAST at spamcastinfo@gmail.com
•    Voice messages can be left at 1-206-888-6111
•    Twitter - www.twitter.com/tcagley
•    BLOG – www.tcagley.wordpress.com
•    FACEBOOK!!!! Software Process and Measurement
     http://tinyurl.com/62z5el

Next Software Process and Measurement Cast:
The next Software Process and Measurement Cast will feature an David Andersen discussing organizational culture and embracing agile, kanban and kaizen requirements and testing.  This interview covered a lot of ground and is very germane to the world we find ourselves in today.  Very very powerful, do not miss it. 

Show Forty Seven begins another two part interview this one with Robin Goldsmith on REAL requirements.  Requirements have been a vexing problem for Information Technology since dirt was young.  Robin presents a structure for addressing the issue.  Part two will be included in SPaMCAST 49.    

Robin is the president of Go Pro Management.  Go Pro Management, Inc. is a consultancy that works directly with and trains professionals in business engineering, requirements analysis, software acquisition, project management, quality and testing.  Mr Goldsmith was previously a developer, systems programmer/DBA/QA, and project leader with the City of Cleveland, leading financial institutions, and a "Big 4” consulting firm.  He holds degrees from Kenyon College, A.B.; Pennsylvania State University, M.S. in Psychology; Suffolk University, J.D.; Boston University, LL.M. in Tax Law.

Robin is the author of the Artech House book, Discovering REAL Business Requirements for Software Project Success, and numerous articles in prominent periodicals, and frequent featured speaker at leading professional conferences.

Contact information:
Web Site: http://www.gopromanagement.com
Email:  RobinGoldsmith@cs.com
Phone: (781) 444-5753

Check out SPaMCAST's Facebook page and get involved!!!!
http://tinyurl.com/62z5el

The essay is titled “Who"s Career Is It Anyway?”  The essay challenges you to think of yourself as your own brand and to take control of maintaining your brand and career.

There are a number of ways to share your thoughts with SPaMCAST:
•    Email SPaMCAST at spamcastinfo@gmail.com
•    Voice messages can be left at 1-206-888-6111
•    Twitter - www.twitter.com/tcagley
•    BLOG – www.tcagley.wordpress.com
•    FACEBOOK!!!! Software Process and Measurement
        http://tinyurl.com/62z5el

Next Software Process and Measurement Cast:
The next Software Process and Measurement Cast will feature Part Two of the interview with Ellen Gottesdiener on agile requirements, facilitation and other topics! Part One in SPaMCAST 46 was great, filled with new ideas on requirements and I think 48 will even be more important.

Show Nine features an interview with Patricia Ferdinandi which begins an arc on the thorny topic of requirements.  Patricia is uniquely qualified to begin this discussion as both a practicing consultant and author of the book titled A Requirements Pattern: Succeeding in the Internet Economy.  Requirements are a core (maybe the core) concept of delivering ANY type of project.  
The essay for this cast is titled, The Seven Deadly Sins of Metrics Programs?  We begin with the sin of pride or one metric to rule them all.

Remember that comments and feedback are welcome!  There are a number of ways to share your thoughts . . .
Email SPaMCAST at spamcastinfo@gmail.com
Voice messages can be left at 1-206-888-6111
It is my intent to share all emails and voice messages!  

Future Events:
On June 21 at 3 PM  I will  be presenting "When Good Numbers Go Bad" at Better Software 2007 in Las Vegas.  The conference and workshops run from Monday June 18 though Thursday June 21 at the Venetian in Las Vegas.  Information is available at http://tinyurl.com/d9fau  If you are attending let me know.

Other Notes:
Ian Brown's article Controlling Software Acquisition Costs With Fnciton Points and Estimation Tool in the May 2007 Crosstalk can be found at http://tinyurl.com/86wxf3

Also Caper's Jones Estimating Software Costs Second Edition has hit the book stores!  Review soon.

Next Software Process and Measurement Cast:
The next Software Process and Measurement Cast features an interview with David Herron discussing executive coaching.  David is the founder of the David Consulting Group, author, presenter and runner.