Archive for the ‘news’ Category

adventures at SEPG 2010

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

I’m at SEPG North America in Savannah this week, and at the halfway point it’s already exceeded what I expected when I tweeted via LinkedIn that I was “ready for #SEPGNA, and looking forward to [re]connecting with interesting people there.” Here are some links you can use to see what’s going on:

Blog posts by some of the interesting people I’ve met up with here:

It’s already been a great week for reconnecting – with Beth Layman (http://www.laymanandlayman.com), more than a few TSP colleagues from SEI and other companies, and someone I enjoyed working with (but last saw/spoke with) 15 years ago in another state.

I’ve been taking a few pictures and some softcopy notes, which I’ll upload later; I’ll be updating this entry with additional names and links during the rest of the week, and I’ll summarize my key takeaways and recurring themes when it’s over.  Enjoy – comments and questions welcome!

Logan’s Run and measurement dysfunction

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

The other day I heard a story on the radio about the US initiative for controlling health care costs. Someone had studied various health conditions and tried to measure which ones, if controlled, would reduce our country’s total health care costs.

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IEEE news – Feb. 2010

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Feb. 16 IEEE Computer Society meeting, Eastern North Carolina Section: I’ve been invited to participate on a panel on “Practical Software Development” with two local luminaries: Andy Hunt (/\ndy) and Robert Galen.

People who RSVP can suggest specific questions they’d like us to tackle, and moderator John Baker promises to bring some additional ‘clever questions’ on balancing agility and discipline. If you’re in the Raleigh area, do plan to come by at 6pm for pizza and the lively discussions that are sure to ensue! IEEE Members and guests are welcome.

Where: Engineering Building I Room 1005 Centennial Campus NCSU
Map: http://www.ncsu.edu/campus_map/centennial.htm

RSVP to John Baker at jbaker (at) etechsuccess.com to confirm your attendance and suggest questions for the panel.

upcoming events

Friday, February 5th, 2010

2010 has been super busy so far, and is off to a great start. In addition to a new IEEE Computer Society meeting panel invitation, and our previously accepted SEPG 2010 presentation on requirements engineering metrics, the Agile Teams collaborators now have a half-day tutorial accepted at SATURN. If you’re also attending SEPG or SATURN this year, please look for us and say hi!

smart(er) cities

Monday, October 5th, 2009

I’m in the process of digesting and summarizing my experiences at last week’s Smarter Cities NYC event and will be blogging a summary shortly; in the meantime, check out http://smarterplanet.tumblr.com and hashtag #smartercities.

Relatively unrelated to this event (I think), a new rating of the ‘smartest cities’ in the US was just published today. The top seven are:

#1:  Raleigh-Durham

#2: San Francisco – Oakland – San Jose

#3: Boston

#4: Minneaoplis – St. Paul

#5: Denver

#6: Hartford – New Haven

#7 (tie): Seattle-Tacoma

#7 (tie): Washington, DC

… read the rationales, and the rest, at http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-10-04/americas-smartest-cities—from-first-to-worst/?cid=bs:archive9#gallery=787.

architectural evaluation for usability

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Recently announced on the SATURN software architecture blog: A tool to support evaluating an architecture for usability, based on collaboration of ABB’s Pia Stoll with the SEI and Carnegie Mellon University. Their A-PLUS tool supports efficient evaluations of software architecture with respect to usability concerns, and is now available for download. Check it out!

agile tweets

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

see http://twittgroups.com/group/agile

upcoming book release

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

I’m planning to check out the new business novel “Aligning Ferret” after its release (note: its introductory price, good through the end of March 2009, is only $12.30 including shipping to the US). I will post here after I’ve reviewed it. I may also check out “Software Requirements and Estimation” by the same authors (Swapna Kishore and Rajesh Naik).

getting AHEAD

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

In conjunction with our colleague Elizabeth, Aldo, Qingfeng, and I have recently completed several new papers on the AHEAD method which emerged from a recent software technology evaluation project. AHEAD stands for Attribute Hierarchy-based Evaluation of Architectural Designs; the method blends the SEI’s Attribute-Driven Design (ADD) with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to deliver a nice balance between efficiency and accuracy (agility and discipline) in performing objective software technology evaluations. Our research results are just now ‘hitting the press’ … the first paper was well received at the QFD Symposium last week, and two others have been accepted at conferences and will be presented in March. Please check out AHEAD – we’d love to hear your comments and suggestions for improving and applying it!

growth

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

This blog has been quiet for a while, partly due to a shift in employer focus away from coaching agile, TSP, and CMMI, and towards research in requirements engineering, technology evaluation, and software architecture. I’m delighted to be reviving this blog now with the addition of new topics (including QFD, ADD, AHP, PrIME) and an outstanding new collaborator, Dr. Qingfeng He! It also seems likely that agile coaching activities will resume in the near future, based upon grass-roots demand for Scrum, which we’re excited about. Look for more new posts and publications here in the near future!