Biography
Dr. Sami Zahran is an International Author, Consultant, Trainer, and Project Manager. He
is one of the chief advocates of Software Process Improvement and its impact on
organisations.
He has over three decades of experience in the software industry. During these years he
participated in and managed several software development projects. These included the
development of an Operating System, a Database Management System, a Data Dictionary System
and several business application projects.
He assumed senior positions with large organisations including ICL, the United Nations,
Digital Equipment Corporation, and currently with IBM. He was trained in Software Porcess
Improvement at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.
Dr. Zahran regularly lectures on software process improvement and is an invited speaker
at numerous international conferences and workshops.
In this Keynote presentation Dr. Zahran will present a framework for Software Process
Improvement in OO development environment. The framework comprises four components:
- Software Process Infrastructure
- Software Process Improvement Roadmap
- Software Process Assessment
- Software Process Improvement Plan.
Practical guidelines for successful planning and implementation of Software Process
Imporvement programmes will be discussed. A comparative positioning of the major Software
Process initiatives will be covered. This will include the Capability Maturity Model
(CMM); ISO15504 (SPICE); BOOTSTRAP; and the SEI Assessment Method.
A Practical Workshop on Planning, Implementing and Managing SOFTWARE PROCESS IMPROVEMENT
Efficient and reliable Software Processes are the fundamental backbone to all successful software development. This practical one-hour workshop will illustrate a way forward for you to analyse and assess clearly and accurately your software development processes and identify areas that require improvement. It will point to you specific methods and techniques that will enable you to start a software process improvement (SPI) programme in your organisation and capitalise on your areas of strengths and eliminate weaknesses. You will appreciate the value of defining a strategy and plan to benchmark the current state of your software process, identify strategic objectives and define a measurable path to achieve continuous software process improvement.
WORKSHOP SESSIONS
The workshop comprises three sessions, 20 minutes each. Each of the sessions will be
dedicated to one area of software process improvement as follows:
Session ONE: Software Process Improvement: Principles and Environments
The first session will discuss the software process improvement benefits, the
characteristics of a process-oriented organisation, the principles of software process
management & the components of a software process improvement (SPI) environment. A
detailed description of the main components of a software process infrastructure will be
discussed.
Session TWO: Software Process Improvement Infrastructure
The second session will discuss the organisational infrastructure necessary for
establishing institutionalising software process imporement into the organisation. Issues
discussed will include how to create software process improvement teams (PITs), the role
of the software engineering process group (SEPG), and the role of management commitment
and sponsorship.
Session THREE: Critical Success Factors for Software Process Improvements
The first session will discuss the potential risks and blocking factors that could
prohibit the success of software process improvement. These could range from resistance to
change by software engineers, to lack of apparent business benefits hence lack of senior
management sponsorship. The participants will be asked to specify list their own
experiences of potential blocking factors in their own organisations. This will be
followed by a group discussion of how to addres these potential issues through proper
planning.
This workshop will take you through a discovery tour around the following milestones:
- Defining the organisational boundaries of your software process improvement (SPI) programme
- Defining the most appropriate Software Process Assessment (SPA) methods and techniques for self-assessment.
- Transforming the SPA results into a workable Software Process Improvement Programme
- Preparing for the effective implementation of your Software Process Improvement Plan
through creating the right organisational and technical infrastructure
This workshop is highly interactive and will based on inputs and case studies offered by the workshop participants.
Following are examples of the challenges and issues that will discussed:
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Problem/Challenge
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How SPI can help
|
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Limited resources for software development
and increasing user demands and mounting backlog
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Establishing an Organisation's Standard Software Process will lead to more effective use of resources & increased productivity
|
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Changing user requirements in the middle of development & Deadlines imposed with little regard to requirements
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Establishing a Requirements Management Process will lead to better management & control of user requirements
|
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Deadlines imposed with little regard to requirements, thus leading to delays, user dissatisfaction, short cuts and fire fighting
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Establishing a Project Planning & Tracking Process will lead to better balance between your workload and project resources
|
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Uncontrolled software releases leading to errors and inconsistency in live software configuration
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Establishing a Software Quality Assurance & Configuration Management Processes will lead to controlled versions & release management & quality of software releases
|
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Lack of focus & ownership of the software process, leading to deteriorating management control, staff improvising the process, and fire fighting becomes the norm
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Establishing a Disciplined Software Process Culture & Infrastructure will lead to explicit process ownership, and buy-in by all software developers & users
|
Participating in this workshop should make you better able to:
- implement and follow well defined, "realistic" process improvement plans
- employ formalised measurement procedures to great effect
- negotiate schedules on the basis of clearly delineated, formally agreed requirements
- predict potential process problems in time to prevent them
- objectively analyse the products and process problems that do occur
- introduce quantitative and agreed benchmarks for assessing the effectiveness of your software process
- effect enormous productivity and efficiency gains