South Western Ontario Software Quality Group

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South Western OntarioSoftware Quality Group

• Annual Course and Book Review Evening
• January 15th, 2003

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Welcome Back

• Welcome to another great year with the SWOSQG
• This year
• Meeting and newsletters as usual
• We will be hosting four exams
• We are sponsoring along with Toronto, Ottawa,
  Data Kinetics and QAI the Canadian Software
  Conference in October

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Canadian Conference

• Conference is October 1st - October 3rd
• Location is the Holiday Inn on King in Toronto
• Website is
• www.dkl.com/conference
• Call for Presentations is already out with a
  deadline of March 31st

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Exam Dates

• Currently we have the following exams scheduled
• London - Friday March 13th _at_ London Life
• Waterloo - Friday June 13th _at_ Manulife
• London - Friday Sept 12th _at_ London Life
• Waterloo - Friday Dec 5th _at_ Manulife
• Proctors required

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Next Meeting

• Will be Wednesday February 12th in Waterloo
• Exact location and topic to be determined

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Renewals

• Accepted tonight
• Accepted next meeting
• Accepted just about anytime!
• Do you know another company that might be
  interested? Invite them out!

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On with the show ...

• Course and Book Reviews

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What do we have?

• Course
• Risk Management
• Designing Effective Test Cases
• Negotiating and Influencing Skills
• Communications courses (4)
• Designing Effective Test Cases
• Kepner-Tregoe Problem Solving and Decision Making
  

• Books
• Creating A Software Engineering Culture
• Software Engineering Theory and Practice
• Software Process Improvement
• The Making of Star Trek
• Working with Emotional Intelligence
• Managing Software Requirements
• Under Pressure and On Time
• Lessons Learned in Software Testing
• The Science of Debugging

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What do we have?

• Books
• Metrics and Models in Software Quality
  Engineering
• Software System Testing and Quality Assurance
• Measuring Software Design Quality
• Running Things, The Art Of Making Things Happen

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Course Review

• Title Effective Methods for Controlling Software
  Projects
• Presented by Carolyn Fairbanks, QAI
• Date October 22nd as part of the QAI Conference
  in Orlando
• Rating (4) out of 5
• Reviewer Mary Wood
• Short Description This one day seminar will help
  in Understanding risk assessment and risk
  management, defining risk and classifying types
  of risk as well as understanding where risk comes
  from and utilizing risk assessment for the
  purpose of making decisions.

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Course Review

• Title Designing Effective Test Cases
• Presented by Steve Barry, DKL
• Date November 25th, 2002
• Rating (4) out of 5
• Reviewer Lynn Larouche
• Short Description Topics included partitioning,
  state models, and action models

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Course Review

• Title Advanced Topics Negotiating and
  Influencing Skills Course
• Presented by Brad McRae
• Date September 27th, 2002
• Rating (5) out of 5
• Reviewer Steve Ronson
• Short Description Topics included partitioning,
  state models, and action models Follow-up to the
  course Negotiating and Influencing Skills The
  art of Creating and Claiming Value.

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Course Review

• Title Communications courses
• Communicate with Confidence half day
• Effective Presentations 2 full days
• Facilitation Skills half day
• Steps to Effective Coaching - half-day
• Presented by Carrie Lightfoot - CML Consulting
• Date Early 2002
• Rating ½ (4.5) out of 5
• Reviewer Steve Ronson

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Course Review

• Title Designing Effective Test Cases
• Presented by Steve Barry, DKL
• Date November 25th, 2002
• Rating out of 5
• Reviewer Steve Ronson
• Short Description Topics included partitioning,
  state models, and action models

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Course Review

• Title Kepner-Tregoe Problem Solving and Decision
  Making
• Presented by Internal Course at London Life
• Date October 23rd, 24th, 2002
• Rating (4) out of 5
• Reviewer Steve Ronson
• Short Description Strategies, techniques, and
  tools for effective Situation Appraisal, Problem
  Analysis, Decision Analysis, and Potential
  Problem (Opportunity) Analysis.

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Book Review

• Title Creating A Software Engineering Culture
• Author Karl E. Wiegers
• Rating ½ (4.5) out of 5
• Reviewer Steve Ronson
• Subject This book is a roadmap and reference to
  creating a Quality Culture, Engineering mindset,
  and a sustainable improvement environment.

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Book Review

• Title Software Process Improvement, IEEE
  Computer Society
• Author Edited by Robin B. Hunter and Richard H.
  Thayer
• Rating (5) out of 5
• Reviewer Steve Ronson
• Subject Numerous articles related to Software
  Process Improvement

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Book Review

• Title The Making of Star Trek
• Author Stephen E. Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry
• Rating ½ (4.5) out of 5
• Reviewer Steve Ronson
• Subject This book describes how the series Star
  Trek was sold to the network and developed.

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Book Review

• Title Working with Emotional Intelligence (audio
  tape, unabridged)
• Author Daniel Goleman
• Rating ½ (4.5) out of 5
• Reviewer Steve Ronson
• Subject This book is about understanding
  yourself and other people. It is about managing
  your emotions and understanding the feelings of
  others. It describes the connection between
  emotion and rational thought, and how both of
  these are used to process information and make
  decisions. By raising your emotional competence
  or intelligence, youll be more effective in
  relationships, both personally and at work. This
  book focuses on using emotional intelligence to
  improve your work performance, either as a
  subordinate or especially as a leader.

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Book Review

• Title Managing Software Requirements
• Author Dean Leffingwell and Don Widrig
• Rating From the Newsletter
• Reviewer Sinda Douglas
• Subject From the Forward "The book is
  structured on the six requisite team skills for
  effective requirements management. The 6 skills
  are analyzing the problem, understanding user
  and stakeholder needs, defining the system,
  managing scope, refining system definition and
  building the right system.

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Book Review

• Title Under Pressure and On Time
• Author Ed Sullivan
• Rating From the newsletter
• Reviewer Steve Ronson
• Subject From the back cover "The purpose of
  this book is to share with you the hard-won
  principles, processes, and techniques for
  developing award-winning commercial software in a
  growing, thriving startup environment. We'll
  discuss the most critical and fundamental
  principles for getting a quality release out the
  door under pressure and on time. We'll discuss
  what's actually been used and successful in a
  commercial startup environment."

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Book Review

• Title Lessons Learned in Software Testing A
  Context-Driven Approach
• Author Cem Kaner, James Bach, Bret Pettichord
• Rating From the newsletter
• Reviewer Michael Cookson
• Subject Lessons Learned in Software Testing is
  really a series of lessons or snippets of
  advice on all aspects of testing based on the
  three authors experiences in the field. There
  are 293 lessons in total, some of them one
  paragraph long, others several pages in length.
  The lessons cover the role of the tester, your
  career, automation testing, managing a test
  group, test plans and other topics.

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Book Review

• Title The Science of Debugging
• Author Matt Telles and Yuan Hsieh
• Rating From the newsletter
• Reviewer Steve Ronson
• Subject The Science of Debugging thoroughly
  explores how to reduce the number of bugs or
  defects in software. The authors present
  strategies, methods, tools, and techniques that
  are language and environment independent. After
  reading this book, "you should know why bugs
  occur, what you can do to help stop them from
  occurring, and how to find and fix bugs in your
  existing code." Debugging is not treated as an
  afterthought, but as a natural part of the
  software development life cycle, through all
  phases. In addition, the authors provide
  convincing and detailed arguments on the
  importance of reducing and preventing bugs,
  including making the case for a professional
  debugger.

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Book Review

• Title Metrics and Models in Software Quality
  Engineering
• Author Stephen H. Kan
• Rating From the newsletter
• Reviewer Ted Aitken
• Subject This is a textbook in the truest sense.
  It is written at a postgraduate level. I found it
  at times a little hard to read. However with that
  aside, it's contents are invaluable for the
  science of measurements for software quality as
  well as a good focus on process effectiveness.

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Book Review

• Title Software System Testing and Quality
  Assurance
• Author Boris Beizer
• Rating From the newsletter
• Reviewer Ted Aitken
• Subject On the whole, 'testers' are not just
  those that can't program very well. They have a
  skill set that compliments that of the
  programmers and developers and are to be counted
  as a valued member of the team. Not just a person
  that gets in the way and is trying to sabotage
  the whole project. Quality assurance is not a
  slam on the programmers or developers abilities,
  but is processes that help ensure that the best
  product can be delivered.

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Book Review

• Title Measuring Software Design Quality
• Author David N. Card (with Robert L. Glass)
• Rating From the newsletter
• Reviewer Ted Aitken
• Subject The book is broken up into three parts.
  Part I - presents the principles of measurement
  and data collection. Part II - goes over the use
  of measurement results. Part III - deals with
  management through control, analysis and delivery
  of new processes that will make productivity and
  quality improvement meaningful to the project
  team.

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Book Review

• Title Running Things, The Art Of Making Things
  Happen
• Author Philip B. Crosby
• Rating From the newsletter
• Reviewer Steve Ronson
• Subject "(This is a) practical guide to the art
  of leadership... Using case studies, anecdotes,
  and fables, (Philip Crosby) illustrates how to
  take charge, lay out clear guidelines, and create
  an atmosphere in which workers can pull together
  to ensure the success of a common objective."
  (from Introduction)

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January Meeting

• Any questions, comments?

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SWOSQG

• Thanks everyone!