AprilR's WebLog : SEI

Day 4 and Final SEPG 2005 Thoughts

AprilR — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 19:34:00 GMT

The Thursday before last was the last day of the conference. It was a choice of various half-day tutorials. For me, the first portion was about requirements development, primarily based on the Microsoft Press book "Software Requirements." Interesting and valuable refresher, but no earth-shattering insights there, at least for me.

The second one was a total blast - "Special Intelligence from the Women in Black". Four highly experienced and tremendously entertaining women, that have become known as the "Women in Black" in this circle, gave a ton of tips and tricks on how to succeed in project management and process improvement. They are my idols now. Lots of good nuggets to share from that. I even got a spy toy - an invisible ink pen with decoding marker, and my very own women in black sunglasses.

Overall I thought the SEPG was great. It was great to be around so many other project managers, think strictly about project management without any details, and to see the real successes out there with formal frameworks and good project managers in general. It was a great exposure to other parts of the software industry for me. The keynotes that I made it to were worthwhile and interesting. And the food was pretty good, too!

april

Days 2 & 3 at SEPG

AprilR — Thu, 10 Mar 2005 08:26:00 GMT

Yesterday and today were "session days" while Monday and tomorrow are "tutorial days." It's been interesting to take a step into the world of the software industry that is passionate about the formal frameworks for development and process improvement. I have met many interesting people, including Watts Humphrey. When I summarize my learnings for my team, I'll share them with you.

For now, random thoughts from my brain...

Hmmm, thinking of top take-aways.... It is sort of sad that the sort of industry standard for actual development task hours are 5-15 hours per week, with frameworks can get upwards of 20, but still, surprises me how low the number is. I do like some of the semantic differences between the way we talk at Microsoft and the way some of the rest of the industry talks. For instance "bug" versus "defect." "Defect" implies something more strong than bug; I think "bug" has become an endearing term, where as I don't think we could warm up to "defect." The other is "code review" versus "code inspection." To me, inspection makes me feel more like I'm receiving a challenge to find something wrong, whereas a review seems like a scan and nod.

Process improvement seems to be something in peoples minds along the lines of other habits people try to work on with varying success. People (okay, I'm included here) who don't eat the most nutricious meals and snacks usually know what to change yet often have trouble doing it. Smokers and heavy alocohol drinkers (I'm not included here) know that what they are doing is harmful to them, yet they continue. Um, people know that racking up credit card debt isn't good, yet the American family average is along the lines of 7-10K$, right?

What I'm trying to get at is that the number two issue our industry seems to have with implementing effective development (number one being management support) is the simple fact that people are resistant to changing habbits, even when they know it is good for them! It is perfectly logical that finding bugs earlier is cheaper. It makes sense that the better your requirements, the less time you spend coding. It makes sense that the more time you spend checking your work before checking in reduces the number of bugs/defects in test. Still, when these expert coaches in the worlds of CMM, TSP/PSP, Six Sigma, what-not, try to affect positive change that will result in higher quality, higher productivity and more effecient development cycles, the intial reaction from engineers is "Noooooooooooo!!!!!".

What are your thoughts out there? Why are we as a people so stubborn, and why are software developers, stuck somewhere between engineering and craft, seemingly especially resistant to process frameworks, even when face to face with data that shows it will pay off hugely?

april

Day 1 at SEPG 2005

AprilR — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 06:10:00 GMT

I promised to blog-as-I-go, and here's my initial thoughts on Day 1.

Today I took the tutorial on Personal Process. I liked that it was something I think I can incorporate in my work without signing our team up for TSP and CMMI. The general idea is that the sooner we find defects, the cheaper, but I think that is a no brainer. What they offered, though, were some interesting exercises to prove their point and to demonstrate the concepts. It all makes sense and has more applications than I initially thought. This was a day long session, so other than meeting folks over lunch, and in the Exhibit Hall later, I didn't do much else to report on yet. I'm sure I'll have more to say as the next few days go by.

One thing that is clear is that people were fascinated that Microsoft has people attending and presenting. They wanted many more answers than I had available, which isn't difficult because I have zero answers around our attendance there. I am attending out of my own interest in the ideas and how they can help the VC++ team. I hope tomorrow's Microsoft presentation sheds some light!

april

Ready to Go - SEPG 2005 in Seattle

AprilR — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 08:20:00 GMT

Since studying project management in the latter part of my undergraduate work, as you may have noted in the Project Management Reality entry, I've tried to keep up to speed on the various professional efforts to create systems for managing software development. One of the best known groups around that work on this stuff is the Software Engineering Institute. Each year I get their advertisements for conferences, and each year there is some reason I can't make it. This year is different!

This year I am excited to be going to the SEPG conference, which happens to be conveniently located here in Seattle at the Washington State Convention Center. It is just around the corner - registration and events start Sunday. Are any of you out there going to attend? I'm interested to hear how you made your schedule choices. One thing I do know is that I am thankful that conferences such as this offer media for the full content, since inevitably you will have at least one, if not more, instances where your two favorite talks are at the same time!

Here is what I decided to target for my schedule:

Monday -

Personal Process - While I am one of the most organized people I know, I always seem to think I can get more done in less time. Oy.

Tuesday -

Avoiding a Documentation Glut
Changing within Your Organization
How to Become Your Customer's Software Provider of Choice
Pracitcal Applications of the CMMI and PMBOK
Personal Software Process for the Effective Executive
Experiencs Coaching Product Development Teams

Wednesday -

Integrating Agile Practices
Statistical Process Control
Effective Change Leaders
Learning from a Great Many Sources
Applying the Team Software Process
Developing Self Directed Teams

Thursday -

Requirements Development
Special Intelligence from the Women in Black

So it was a great time for me to start a blog last month, so I can share all of my insights about the conference with you as I go through it. I'm ready to go!

april