Abstract: This presentation will include an introductory explanation on the theory and history of Model Driven Architecture (MDA) and an overview of its major underlying components, including an initial discussion on the Unified Modeling Language (UML) to establish a baseline understanding for the audience. We will highlight the various stages of an MDA approach and will emphasize the impact MDA can have on the software development lifecycle. Specifically, in regard to an organizations ability to deliver high-quality, reusable software within a repeatable process while significantly reducing project risk and increasing return on investment.

We will follow this discussion with a practical demonstration of MDA techniques to illustrate these principles and concepts. We will discuss the pros and cons of MDA, the state-of-the-art, and the steps required to leverage MDA in your existing business environment. We will end the presentation with a brief question and answer session.

Speaker Bio: Robert Lario is a principal and co-founder of INHERIT, LLC. He has over 20 years of software development experience designing, developing, and deploying enterprise solutions using Object-Oriented techniques. He has a Masters in System Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and an MDA from the Wharton Business School. Based on years of practical experience, Mr. Lario began development on Inherit Express MDA tool in 1998. He has been the primary architect and the driving force behind the development of each release, including the most recent version Express Templates. With his work on INHERIT Express, Mr. Lario is leading the evolution of the state-of-the-art of MDA

If you are in the Atlanta area, the meeting will be held in the Oracle office at Northpark Town Center (building 500, suite 1120). 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!
http://www.atlantaspin.org

See you there!

Cheers.

Abstract: All organizations measure some aspect of their performance, with the goal of managing and improving their processes and products. Unfortunately many organizations get bogged down in the measurement process – developing too many measures (or too few), overly complex implementations, failing to use metrics for improvement initiatives, or failing to link metrics with top-level strategies or actual work processes of the employees. This session will provide you with real strategies and implementation insights necessary to set up and sustain a measurement system for monitoring and improving your IT organization. Key to any measurement program is the ability to view progress in real-time. Thought leaders in the industry are turning to management dashboards as a way to gain clear visibility of project status, processes and metrics across the enterprise. While most organizations possess many sets of metrics, a re-evaluation and re-examination of what exactly is being measured and how it is being reported and used is key.

Specific topic areas will include:

• Collecting data that is linked to the business objectives of your organization
• Engaging all levels of your application development and IT functions to participate
• Setting up a management dashboard and relevant reports
• Using data and metrics proactively for continuous improvement

Speaker Bio: Mark Schadt has over 23 years of experience in Application Lifecycle Management processes and solutions. His areas of expertise are process/workflow assessment, design and management, as well as the implementation of management systems for version control, software configurations, build and deployment, requirements, and geographically distributed development. Prior to joining MKS, Mark worked for IBM Rational, Apple Computer and Texas Instruments, and as an independent software change management consultant he advised companies such as AT&T, Time Warner, TRW, and Lockheed Martin. Mark has a Masters degree in Computer Science.

If you are in the Atlanta area, the meeting will be held in the Oracle office at Northpark Town Center (building 500, suite 1120). 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!
http://www.atlantaspin.org

See you there!

Cheers.

The topic will be “Still Searching For the Silver Bullet: Pitfalls of RAD, Agile/XP and Other Forms of Iterative Development”

Abstract: In our never-ending search for faster, as well foolproof, ways of doing development, we continue to chase after promises that often fall short of expectations. Come hear Lois Zells give a brand new presentation about the project management pros and cons of RAD (Rapid Application Development,) Agile/XP, Evolutionary Development, Iterative Development, and Prototyping. Hear the latest on why these types of projects are still failing and how to avoid the pitfalls. Have a common sense discussion of how to manage realistic expectations before projects go awry. This session is apropos for all levels of the IS organization from analyst/programmer to CIO, from business unit user to business unit project participant, from project lead to program manager, albeit technical or non-technical..

Bio: Lois Zells is an international author, lecturer, and business consultant, specializing in software engineering consulting. A popular speaker at European and United States conferences, she has spoken at the American Society for Quality Control, The Quality Assurance Institute, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Cap Gemini Institute, the Association for Systems Management, the Berlin COMPAS Expo, ComputerWorld Germany Software Forum For Europe, PC Expo, Cap Gemini London, Technology Transfer Institute America, Technology Transfer Italy, IBM’s Users Groups: Guide and Share, the Data Processing Financial Management Association, the Canadian Information Processing Society, the Project Management Institute, the Data Processing Management Association, the Federal Computer Conference, the Structured Development Forum, the Structured Techniques Association, the National Computer Conference, the AFIPS Office Automation Conference, the Year 2000 Conference & Expo, and Brainstorm Group’s Y2k Conference.

Ms. Zells is the Co-founder and Past Executive Advisory Chair for the 20,000-member Information Systems Specific Interest Group of the Project Management Institute, a worldwide organization of 80,000 plus members. She was honored as a PMI woman of the Year in 1993; and is co-honoree of the PMI Wilson/Zells Scholarship Fund.

Because of her acknowledged expertise in software engineering and project management, Ms. Zells frequently serves as an expert witness in multi-million dollar software litigations. She has also served as an examiner for the Arizona Statewide Baldridge Award and served for several years on the review committee for the revision of ISO 9000-3 (International Standard ISO/IEC 12207.)

Ms. Zells was also on the Advisory Board for PC Expo, one of the two largest PC conferences in the world. She has also served on the Board of Governors of the Brainstorm Group. Ms. Zells is the author of (and consultant in) several popular management workshops in strategic planning, project management, total quality management, strategic systems planning, process maturity assessments, systems development methodologies and techniques, business process re-engineering, and systems maintenance.

She has authored the best seller, “Managing Software Projects” and has published many articles in the major periodicals of the industry. For several years, Ms. Zells was a contributing editor for “Application Development Trends.” She is also the developer of the Total Quality Management seminar series “Software Excellence Through Total Quality Management.” Her most popular seminar series is the totally-integrated, three-tier learning program on software engineering project management called “Successful Projects: The Common Sense Approach.” Ms. Zells has written the introductory chapter for “Total Quality Management for Software,” published by Van Nostrand Reinhold and the information systems chapter for the AMA’s “Program and Project Handbook.” She is now also working on her second book: “The Practical Guide To Successful Projects.”

Ms. Zells has been a significant contributor and participant in a long-range strategic planning innovation search—sponsored by the Advanced Systems Concepts Office of the U.S. Army Information Systems Command and jointly managed by SRI International and Mandex, Inc.

Ms. Zells’ other clients range from the Fortune 100 firms to new start-up ventures and are spread across a broad array of industries. She has worked with a large international computer manufacturer, a major international steel manufacturer, several large nationwide insurance companies, an international telecommunications company, a major food processor, a large health-care provider, a major aerospace manufacturer, and two international electronics firms—in helping them to turn around and improve their software engineering processes, by defining their requirements for achieving software maturity and creating an environment conducive to successful high-quality projects, by also developing their software engineering and project management programs and seminars, and by consulting on several significant projects.

Highly specialized in Structured Analysis, Structured Design, and Structured Programming, she taught these subjects for five years at Phoenix College as well as for three and a half years with Yourdon, Inc. (an international seminars/consulting firm), where she also developed their popular project management curriculum, the Project Planning and Control Workshop. During this time, she was personally trained as a disciple of Ed Yourdon, Tom DeMarco, and Tim Lister: the leaders in the field. She has also used the structured techniques and various CASE tools on many projects that she either participated in, consulted on, or managed.

Ms. Zells graduated Summa Cum Laude in Data Processing Management from the University of Baltimore and did her master’s studies in Computer Sciences at Johns Hopkins University and Arizona State University.

Having served as consultant, department manager, project manager, systems analyst, operating systems programmer, and applications programmer/analyst, Ms. Zells has over twenty-five years in data processing. With many years of job-related experience in hospital applications, manufacturing applications, banking and finance, and with also 17 and 1/2 years in systems management consulting for the banking, insurance, and manufacturing industries as well as the government, she has managed the implementation of an in-house end-user time sharing company, office automation, strategic systems planning, business process re-engineering, a multimillion dollar client/server processing system, an interactive project control system, an automated teller machine network, a 100 station local and remote distributed customer information and network switching system for charge card data entry and authorizations, entree into charge card duality for MasterCard and Visa, and a patient billing system.

Ms. Zells has also managed the development of standards in project management, programming, documentation, change management, planning, prioritizing, and quality control. She has developed project estimates of time, resources, and dollars for small projects with a few hundred tasks to large projects with many thousands of tasks. Ms. Zells has worked extensively with a telecommunications company in helping them to turn around their declining business position by guiding them through an innovative strategic planning process and then repositioning their product distribution channels.

Ms. Zells has presented seminars in systems management for the personnel department of a large state agency, so that they could rewrite their existing job descriptions. She has also served on a federal government committee that was established for the purpose of evaluating job classifications as well as to aid in enlisting and keeping exceptional workers in government.

Publications

Ms. Zells is the author of (and consultant in) several popular management workshops in strategic planning, project management, contingency planning, litigation planning, total quality management and quality assurance, MIS planning for the corporate executive, software process maturity assessments, product development, business process re-engineering, selecting and implementing systems development methodologies and techniques, managing client-server development, managing emerging technologies, and systems maintenance.

Her most recent efforts include the new Managing Emerging Technologies and the Total Quality Management seminar series Excellence Through Performance and Excellence Through Total Quality Management. She has also authored the popular, totally-integrated, three-tier learning program on software engineering project management called Successful Projects: The Common Sense Approach.

She has authored the best seller, Managing Software Projects: Selecting And Using PC-Based Project Management Systems published by QED Information Sciences. Ms. Zells has written the introductory chapter for Total Quality Management for Software, published by Van Nostrand Reinhold and has contributed a chapter on Information Systems Project Management to The Program and Project Handbook, published by the American Management Association.

She has contributed to and published many articles in the major periodicals and proceedings of the industry such as Investor’s Business Daily, ComputerWorld, the National Computer Society Proceedings, the PMI National Symposia, PMI’s PMNet Journal, The Structured Techniques Association, ProjExpo, ACR’s Managing System Development, IEEE’s Software Process Improvement Conference Proceedings, The Federal Systems Journal, and Application Development Trends.

http://www.atlantaspin.org

See you there!

Cheers.

Here is the blurb from that email, sans the company name and person’s name (I’m here to point out inefficiencies, but I certainly don’t want to embarrass anyone):

——————————————————
Acme Software Corporation is looking for a new VP of Services and a new Director of Enterprise Sales both reporting to the SVP of Sales.

VP of Services

Responsible for the support team (about 20 people), the services group (about 10) and training (about 7). Revenue of 15- 16 million broken out with 11 for support and 4-5 in services including training.
——————————————————

Okay, once you pick yourself up off the ground from the laughing spree that surely ensued from the above description, we can continue.

I will put this succinctly. Repeat after me. In a software company, delivery of any type should never report through sales. This is a classic conflict of interest. A morass waiting to happen. A proverbial goat rodeo in the making. If anything, the delivery/services arm of a software company should report through the operating branch of the company (i.e. the COO or VP of Operations).

Would you ever allow your car salesman to also personally provide maintenance services for you? Call me crazy, but I’m guessing you wouldn’t. Performing delivery or maintenance services is outside of the realm of the salesperson’s expected expertise. In a similar fashion, you wouldn’t go to the furniture delivery guy and ask him to help you pick out an accent table for your living room. Same principle, only in reverse.

Aside from that obvious distinction, there exists a more important issue here – internal governance conflict. With the services function reporting to the people who actually sell it, what check or balance exists to prevent service quality being compromised over the long run? It is only a matter of time before a sales person goes out and sells an impossible or convoluted “solution” to a client, and throws it over the wall to the services folks which report to them. It is also only a matter of time before the services team starts harboring ill feelings.

In any software company with a services component, the services function should exist on the same level as product development, both of which should report under the operational management of the firm. Sales is best set up as an independent body, working to sell products and services from across the firm’s portfolio of solutions. Governance of delivery is not part of the sales body of knowledge, and is certainly not something that any software firm worth their weight in anything would allow to fall under sales. Doing so is simply poor functional alignment.

Armed with this new knowledge, you can rest peacefully at night, knowing that you would never buy stock in this particular company. Oh, wait, never mind. They were delisted from NASDAQ some time back. Gee, I wonder why.

Cheers.

Abstract: The last few years have seen an explosion in the number of reference models an organization might use as the basis for improving its performance. Notwithstanding the Software Engineering Institute’s efforts to consolidate reference models in the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), the number of models has continued to grow. An organization wishing to use best practices to establish “world class” or “best in class” performance faces a bewildering array of choices. IT shops may consider not only the CMMI, but also be thinking about COBIT, ISO 90003:2004, ITIL, and PMI’s Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3), to name several of the more widely used models. Faced with such an array of choices, many are left wondering if these models integrate synergistically. Alternatively, do they represent a huge effort to implement individually, with little relationship to one another. Assuming the latter is true, many face difficult choices, in an environment in which allocation of limited resource is fiercely competitive. This presentation describes an integrated approach to improving organization performance based on process architecture and detailed model mappings.

Bio: Mr. Brotbeck is an Information Technology consultant with over 35 years experience in the areas of business and information technology planning, business process reengineering, software engineering, software process improvement, and complex information systems development. He has expertise in object-oriented technology, software quality assurance (QA), seminar and workshop development and delivery, and management responsibilities ranging from project management to “C-Level” senior line management. Mr. Brotbeck is a Certified Software Quality Engineer, a Six Sigma Green Belt, and an authorized Instructor for Practical Software and System Measurement (PSM). He holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in Mathematics. He is currently an SEI Candidate Instructor for the Introduction to CMMI class, and an SEI Candidate Lead Appraiser.

If you are in the Atlanta area, the meeting will be held in the Oracle office at Northpark Town Center (building 500, suite 1120). Check the Atlanta SPIN web site for the latest details and directions.

http://www.atlantaspin.org

See you there!

Cheers.

Okay, I realize that the Wizard of Oz lead-in was weak – I promise that this will get better …. read on! I must apologize in advanced for the length of this article. I prefer my blog entries to have some substance to them; something you can derive value from, if you will.

When I talk about professional services from a software vendor’s perspective, I am referring to those services typically offered around the sale of a technology solution. For example, say a company buys a software package to help manage their warehouse inventories. There are potentially lots of value-added services that are located around the purchase of that software product, including, but certainly not limited to:

• Procurement of the hardware needed to run the package
• Installation and configuration of the hardware
• Installation of the software system itself
• Product training and development (assimilation)
• Customization of the software system to better match the buyer’s business processes
• Data entry or data conversion services, to input current inventory information into the system
• Integration of the inventory system with other systems, such as billing/accounts receivable, order management, CRM, etc.
• Data hosting and managed services to provide long-term system availability monitoring
• Periodic security and audit monitoring
• Routine system administration and report generation
• Maintenance and technical support services on an ongoing basis
• Installation and customization of future system upgrades

The list goes on and on.

It should be pretty apparent that services represents a rather large revenue universe. How big is it? According to a 2004 Gartner Group report, IT services (as a whole) encompass a $570B global industry. That’s not an insignificant chunk o’ change. Given the size of the market, and the market proximity to their own products, it’s not surprising then that many software vendors also play in the services space. As a software firm matures, the revenue from services can provide the sustained, incremental growth that software license sales can no longer offer.

As an example, consider IBM. Once known as the world’s biggest hardware manufacturer, they progressed into being a hybrid hardware & software company. They realized a long time ago, however, that once you sold that hardware and software to a customer, there was still money to be made by offering services around those products. How much cash? Today, professional services represent 50% of IBM’s yearly revenues. Even Hewlett Packard is doing $3-4B in services each year. Not shabby.

But the professional services rewards are not reserved only for the big boys. Consider The TriZetto Group, Inc., a California software & services firm focusing on the healthcare industry. Q3/2005 revenues were reported as $73.1M – which represented 261 new customer contracts. 171 of those contracts were for implementation services, software customization and other services valued at $43.8 million; 64 of the contracts were software license contracts valued at $29.7 million; and the remaining 26 were outsourced services contracts (software hosting, business process outsourcing and other services) valued at $1.6 million. So out of a total pie of $73.1M, nearly 60% of that revenue is grounded in services. Thats a big hunk of key lime, kids.

As promising as services sounds, not all software firms subscribe to the notion that offering services is the way to go. Microsoft is the biggest software company in the world. They already own 90% of practically every market they are in – the only real growth for them at this point would be in services, yet they essentially ignore it, choosing instead to allow third party vendors to provide the services instead. Simon Witts, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s enterprise and partner group, has stated publically that Microsoft is not in the services business and does not plan to become a services player. According to Witts: “We still run that as a cost center and it doesn’t even break even.”

I am familiar with one particular technology firm that has a presence here in Atlanta (we’ll call them Acme Corporation, for the sake of discussion). The Acme CTO actually argued, in the board room, against professional services. This despite the fact that professional services around their product line represented 15-20% of their overall revenue streams ($30-35M out of their total revenue pool of around $200M). The CTO basically wanted to divest the services group, in favor of outsourcing to partners. He basically lobbied to throw away a profitable $30M division of the company. His argument? “We’re a software company, not a services company.” Holding this sort of philosophical view on professional services is something akin to winning the lottery and refusing to pick up the check because you prefer direct deposit.

If you compare the Acme numbers to the Trizetto Group (mentioned earlier in this article), the overall revenue numbers are very comparable (compared at the quarterly level). The software/services mix is flip-flopped, however, even though the two companies offer similar sets of products and services, and in the same industries. Trizetto is doing 60% in service revenue, while Acme is doing only 15-20% in services. Trizetto realizes that services is an incremental way to build revenue, thus, they focus on it. Acme doesn’t – hence, their CTO lobbies to not offer any direct services at all. Call me crazy, but I want to buy stock in Trizetto.

Trust me when I say that shareholders could care less about where your revenue originates. As long as the revenue is around the core competencies of the firm, then let the good times roll.

Another smaller, but fast growing, software firm in Atlanta also held the same view – clinging onto the belief that they were purely a “software” company, and not a “services” company. Their problem is a little different. They “like” the concept of professional services, but are absolutely insistent that their software sales be higher than their services sales, irrespective of how much services work they leave on the table. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. If I had shares in this company, I would have sold them immediately after hearing about this. This is not a company that is positioned for long-term success (and indeed, I now understand why they are struggling to compete in their sector). You may build a company on software, but you grow it on services – this particular firm has historically failed to see this, and has paid a hefty price for it through the loss of market share.

There can exist what I call a perpendicular correlation between software & services (particularly implementation or integration services). If you have a software product aimed at vertical markets, services can allow you to not only get deep vertically, but also to extend horizontally, and go into other verticals with your product. On the other hand, if you have a software product that spans horizontal markets, services will allow you to not only continue branching out into additional vertical markets, but also to go very deep within your existing vertical markets, to add additional value to your customers through niche integration. So, you determine where you want to expand and use services as a way of getting you there – a vehicle, if you will.

Atlanta-based Witness Systems is another classic example of a software company that seems to “get” services. In 2004, 51% of their revenue was derived from value-added services offered around their software products. From their 2004 annual report:

Services revenue, consisting of installation, training, consulting, maintenance support and reimbursable travel expenses, increased 35% to $83.7 million in 2004 compared to 2003 and 80% to $61.8 million in 2003 compared to 2002. These increases were primarily due to the installation and training services related to new product sales and due to customers renewing their maintenance contracts with us thereby increasing our recurring maintenance revenue stream.

So it is clear that services is an incremental revenue builder, and is a critical cog for strategic planning. Why, then, are so many software firms not pushing services? After all, they own their products – as such, they are the best providers of related services. By allowing others to offer those services, these companies are simply leaving money on the table.

Perhaps it is that these software executives don’t really understand how to create, nurture, and ultimately grow a services component to their organizations. Having played on both sides of that equation, I can personally attest to the differences. In cases such as this, management needs to focus on the problem, and bring in someone who can help them realign themselves accordingly. Ignoring a deficiency in your services strategy is not a viable answer. Firms that ignore services, and continue to stay on the “software-only” track, will eventually find themselves on the outside looking in. Further, those companies that philosophically fail to get over the “we’re a software company” mentality will suffer the same fate.

Those software firms who continue to shun services are going to face continued revenue expectations, and will be forced to adjust their service mix in their overall business, which will invariably put pressure on their margins. The integration of end-to-end solutions – the complete solution, if you will – is driving customer acceptance. This will force those service-shunners to scramble for alliances to do their bidding, which will result in more money being left on the table, and an increased risk profile for each engagement, as there will be a reduction in control.

Technology buyers want the full solution. They don’t want to piecemeal their critical systems by working with 5 different vendors (software, implementation, training and development, help desk, etc.). The competitive advantage has historically fallen, and will continue to fall, to those vendors that can see beyond a simple software sale, and provide value around the solution itself. Doing anything else, quite frankly, is not only leaving money on the table, but leaving tasty scraps for your competitors.

I won’t even get into the fact that the single biggest movement right now in the software sector is the open source movement – and open source businesses are essentially services plays. Even venerable firms like Apple are now seeing the value in this and jumping on board. I promise to get on that horse another day.

Cheers.

Abstract: If loyal customers are the essence of what makes companies successful, why is it that so many organizations fail to involve their customers when developing software products? Depending on which analysts’ reports you read, between 60% and 90% of all new product rollouts fail. More importantly, the number one reason for this failure is lack of customer involvement. When we don’t involve our customers throughout the planning and development process we are at high risk of incurring:

• Cost overruns
• Missed opportunities and expectations
• Lost customers
• Failed products and lost revenue
• Since we are aware of these risks, why do so many companies continue to ignore the needs of their customers when it comes to developing and maintaining market-driven products?

What You’ll Learn – Larry Boldt will share with you the importance of having an effective Customer Feedback Management process to ensure that customer’s have a voice in product planning and development. In addition to an effective process, the people and technology aspects will also be discussed ensuring that the process can be implemented successfully.

The Take-Away – Seven habits or behaviors of an effective customer feedback process are provided as a checkpoint for attendees to measure the effectiveness of their customer feedback process.

Speaker Bio: Larry Boldt is an accomplished software engineering manager and developer with over 30 years of experience in managing and providing business process improvement products and services to Global 1500 companies. Larry’s areas of functional expertise include: product management, requirements management, process management, change management, software quality management, and system implementation. As the VP of Customer Management for Orasi Software, he is responsible for product strategy and initiatives supporting customer satisfaction and loyalty. Larry holds a Masters of Science degree in Organizational Management from Maryville University.

If you are in the Atlanta area, the meeting will be held in the Oracle (not Orasi!) office at Northpark Town Center (building 500, suite 1120). Check the Atlanta SPIN web site for the latest details and directions.

http://www.atlantaspin.org

See you there!

Cheers.

There is no single methodology that is a panacea for all things process related.

The process heavyweights, such as literal interpretations of the Rational Unified Process (RUP) and traditional waterfall approaches, are very thorough, and leave very few, if any, stones unturned. However, it introduces a significant amount of overhead when deployed. It has a rather large implementation footprint. The Rational documentation far eclipses (in size) most of the documentation of the projects that go through it!

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the lighter, nimbler methodologies, such as Agile, Scrum, and eXtreme Programming (XP). Their implementation footprint is much, much smaller, however, that savings in overall weight came with a price – a lot of good stuff was thrown overboard to lighten the load. They don’t call it “agile” for nothing.

So which is better?

First, and foremost, you need to take into account the overall scope of the project in question. If you are building a rocket ship that will carry 75 people to the moon and back, cost $300 million to build, and will take 5 years to complete, then I would leave the Agile handbook at home and go for something a wee bit sturdier. In situations such as this, issues such as rigid requirements management, redundant quality checks, linear documentation phases, and strict testing tollgates become paramount. Failure to do so will more than likely result in additional costs as problems have to be repeatedly revisited, constraints are not put into place to prevent scope creep, etc..

Likewise, if the scope of your project is very narrow, such as a middleware script or simple system automation tasks, then breaking out the Rational approach would result in a ridiculous TCO (total cost of ownership) multiplier. Imagine that in order to rollout a service with a very narrow scope, you had to spend a week gathering requirements, another week to design and prototype a solution, another week for a facilitate session to refine the prototype, another week to develop the product, another week to fully test it, and another week to roll it out. That’s 5 weeks or so. That $500 JIT project to create a simple backup script for your database server just turned into a $10,000 venture. If the product’s scope is narrow – don’t bother. Shotgun it – get it done and move on with your life.

So what am I saying? In essence: choose wisely. Use common sense. Just because a waterfall methodology is out there doesn’t mean you have to use it for everything you do. Likewise, just because most of your projects use the Agile method doesn’t mean you can’t resort to using something a little sturdier if the scope or criticality of the project deems it necessary.

Culturally, there are some inherent hurdles to this “common sense” approach. If your firm manages all of its projects through a project management office (PMO), then introducing a lightweight approach such as Agile could cause some intereference, as the PMO tends to lose some visibility into those types of projects. Conversely, if your development machine is lightweight all the way, introducing some heavy-duty waterfall approach will most likely cause some angst as well, especially among your development staff. To mitigate this, an educational approach must be taken to ensure that all relevant stakeholders are aware of the need for either cost savings for smaller engagements, or increased visibility and controls for larger ones.

My advice? If you are a cowboy coder, an Agile junkie, a waterfall diver, or a RUP purist, get over yourself and start using your noggin’. The world doesn’t revolve around any particular platform or methodology. IT is a business – and as such, CIOs and CTOs should choose the best possible path forward, given the nature and budget of the project, as well as the long-term interests of the firm.

Firms that remain philosophically “stuck” on one approach, and unwilling to explore other, potentially more efficient means, will find themselves as the beneficiary of a lot of wasted effort.

The competitive advantage will fall to the firm who can make wise, project-centric decisions. The one-size-fits-all approach is, well, so 1990s.

Cheers.

In summary, the talk served as a high-level tutorial on the PMBoK approach to project management while providing insight into how it can be pragmatically applied to a typical development environment.

I never cease to be amazed at the quality of the speakers at our SPIN meetings. Ron Wojick is no exception.

Ron Wojcik has worked software development for over thirty years, primarily in the telecommunications industry. Ron joined AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1977 where he performed and then led real-time software development and systems engineering efforts. In 1991, Ron joined BellSouth Telecommunications as a Research Director for systems engineering. In 1996, Ron assumed the role of Executive Director/Network Vice President for systems development in support of emerging technologies being deployed into the BellSouth network. In 2002, Ron retired from BellSouth and established Pragmatic! Solutions, a telecommunications consulting company.

Ron is currently Executive Director for TTI Telecom, where he has technical account management and system development/delivery responsibilities.

Ron’s academic accomplishments include a B.S. in Math from Illinois Institute of Technology; a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Brown University; and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Ron is also a certified Project Management Professional.

At the next SPIN meeting, Larry Boldt, the VP of Customer Management at Orasi Software, will be delivering a presentation entitled “Customer Feedback Management – 7 Habits of Highly Effective Customer Feedback Process.”

Abstract: If loyal customers are the essence of what makes companies successful, why is it that so many organizations fail to involve their customers when developing software products? Depending on which analysts’ reports you read, between 60% and 90% of all new product rollouts fail. More importantly, the number one reason for this failure is lack of customer involvement. When we don’t involve our customers throughout the planning and development process we are at high risk of incurring:

• Cost overruns
• Missed opportunities and expectations
• Lost customers
• Failed products and lost revenue

Since we are aware of these risks, why do so many companies continue to ignore the needs of their customers when it comes to developing and maintaining market-driven products?

www.atlantaspin.org

Cheers.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with SPIN, it is a great organization co-sponsored by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) out of Carnegie Mellon University. They aim to provide value around improving the “process” of software development for its member organizations and sponsors. Monthly meetings offer a featured presentation on such topics as CMM/CMMI, ISO, PMI/PMBOK, Six Sigma, and other quality frameworks. Good stuff.

Meetings are open to all individuals, companies, universities, and government organizations who have an interest in software quality, maturity, and process improvement.

Our goal is to enhance our membership’s knowledge and skills through an active program of networking, publication, local and national speakers, recognition of excellence, and mutual support.

If you are in the Altanta area, meetings are held once a month, generally at the offices of one of our sponsors (Oracle, Microsoft, etc.). Check the Atlanta SPIN web site for the latest details.

http://www.atlantaspin.org

I am planning on publishing informative updates after each SPIN meeting, so stay tuned!

I welcome this opportunity to serve, and look forward to helping build a quality process improvement organization for the region.

Cheers.