This is a bit late as far as notice goes, but if you will be in the Atlanta area this Wednesday evening (11/15), you can attend the monthly meeting of the Atlanta Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN) and hear Conflair founder Michael Yudanin deliver a presentation entitled “Off-shoring Assurance: Making it work.”

Abstract: Off-shoring of software development, maintenance and support activities is an established means of driving down costs and improving a company’s competitive position in the market. However, many off-shoring efforts fail to fulfill the promise of low costs and high quality, due to unexpectedly high setup and operational costs, massive rework and low quality.

Off-shoring poses all the familiar challenges of building a new software development organization - challenges which, despite significant research, decades of experience and countless papers, are still causing many companies grave problems. In the case of off-shoring, all these challenges are amplified by geography, cultural differences, infrastructure complications…

As with many other challenges, there could be multiple keys for off-shoring success. This presentation explores a number of them:

• Defining your needs and criteria for success: why do you need off-shoring? Is the major goal cost reduction? Improving time to market? What are the criteria for success?
• Off-shoring model selection: will a group of developers out there be an integral part of your organization or a separate organizational entity? Which one is better for your company? What are the criteria for making the right decision?
• Planning for off-shoring: how to prepare? What do you need to change in your organization to make off-shoring successful? What processes should be changed/ developed to make off-shoring successful?
• Solution Development: how do you translate the plans into action? and specifically:
• Selecting an off-shore entity
• Streamlining your existing software life cycle
• Tracking progress and quality by process and product metrics
• Defining and implementing management controls
• Creating efficient quality assurance mechanisms

Bio: Michael Yudanin’s area of expertise is software processes assurance. Translated into practice, it means creating life cycle models that fit organizations’ needs and constraints, establishing verification and validation activities throughout the software life cycle, off-shoring process and product assurance, logo certification testing, test automation, organizing and managing testing efforts for new development and implementation, designing software processes to fit CMMI® and ISO requirements, as well as other applications of quality in information technology.

Michael is a founder of Conflair - an IT Solutioning Company. IT Solutioning is an operational philosophy that emphasizes development and implementation of custom client-centric solutions rather than provision of a number of well-defined services certain company knows how to do well. Throughout his career Michael worked with a large number of companies, among them: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, United Parcel Service, Sage Accounting, Ceridian, Comverse, Georgia Department of Transportation, Tennessee Valley Authority. Michael Yudanin is a Certified Software Quality Engineer by the American Society for Quality since 1999.

Check the Atlanta SPIN web site for the latest details and directions. Come out for some great networking with some of Atlanta’s top software development professionals. The free pizza is a bonus!

See you there!

Cheers.