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| Karen J. Smiley | ||||
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Experience | Philosophy | Methodologies | Research and Deployment | Education | Teaching | Conferences | Affiliations | Contact Info |
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Experience Summary
Karen believes in methodological pluralism over methodological purity: there is no silver bullet. (For a great article on silver bullets, see Sarah Sheard's "Life Cycle of a Silver Bullet"). Even if she were still primarily a developer (like her brother Paul, brother-in-law Jim, and many good friends), she would want to have a broad collection of good tools in her toolbox. Karen considers methodologies, lifecycle models, processes, and practices such as PSP/TSP and agile to be 'tools' in the same way that {programming languages, design methods, databases ...} are. She is committed to helping the project teams she supports to choose and effectively use the tools that best fit their (and their customers') needs. Karen sustains a strong interest in the interpersonal factors that affect effective teams. She is a dedicated "Theory Y" proponent who believes the software systems world would be a better place if every manager would just read and internalize Peopleware. Her own MBTI evaluations over the years have migrated slightly from INTJ towards INFP. Methodologies
See her Research and Deployment page for details of her latest research projects, collaborations, and publications. Education Karen earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology (both summa cum laude). In 2004, she was accepted into the PhD program of the Computer Science Department of NC State University as a part-time student. This work was suspended in 2006 due to serious illness of a family member. See Learning for more details (Karen's NCSU home page is no longer active). In addition to her formal education, Karen has taken many technical training courses over the years (too many to list here), in software development and management and in software process improvement. She was selected to participate in the PSP Certified Developer beta exam program which was held at TUG 2005, and was notified on Dec. 14 that she had passed! (See new SEI page listing the SEI-Certified PSP Developers.) Karen was one of ten people chosen in Fall 2006 to participate in the TSP Coach alpha certification test initiative, which was held at TUG 2006. In conjunction with the Requirements Engineering research leadership, Karen has pursued 
QFD training, and now holds a provisional QFD Black Belt.
Karen's next planned training courses, in conjunction with her ABB coaching work,
are in software system architecture and CMMI for Acquisition.
For fun, she experiments at home with CD-bootable Linux (KDE Live), Java, and various scripting languages.
Teaching (at ABB and at local universities)
Karen maintains membership interests in, among others: 6 Sigma for Software, ACM, Agile Alliance, Agile Carolinas, Agile RTP, IEEE Computer Society, National Association of Female Executives, Project Management Institute (PMI®) NC chapter, ResearcHers, RTP Software Process Improvement Network Council, RTP Software Test Managers' Roundtable, Scrum Alliance (for Certified ScrumMasters), Software Engineering Institute, Systers, Triangle Web Technology Women (TW2, formerly WebGrrls), Triangle XP Users Group, and Women In Technology International (RTP chapter). When her travel schedule permits, she attends local meetings of these groups. In her spare time, Karen serves as photographer and webmaster for DLH Nursery, lung cancer blog clubwhat.info, and other community-service sites under development including Club EHCF and
LCcure.org/DISCover A Cure.
Contact Information Email her at |
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Karen is currently an
