Tutorials: Series M
Monday, March 4th, 2002

Use the right tools, the right methods, in the right place

Biography:

Michael D. Sowers is executive vice president of SDT, Michael has over two decades of experience in the engineering and quality fields with extensive experience in requirements gathering, defect prevention techniques, defect containment approaches, software verification and validation practices, software engineering methodologies, assessment practices and pre/post release measurement systems. Michael was the Group Director of Quality and Product Validation at Cadence Design Systems, where he led the company wide strategic quality planning and software verification and validation activities for an internationally distributed team. Michael is an adjunct faculty member for the National Graduate School of Quality, is trained in the SEI methodology, and serves as Sr. Examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Michael holds  a Master of Science Degree in Total Quality Management from Anna Maria College, a Bachelors Degree from Ohio University. 

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Tutorial #M3 (Monday 8:30 - 4:30 p.m.)

This interactive workshop shows ways to organize, direct, and control testing resources to accomplish more of the important testing in limited time while actually enabling earlier software delivery.  The course has three key emphases:  (1) Managing testing as a proactive process, (2) establishing and managing the Testing Infrastructure of people and technology, and (3) carrying out individual testing projects.  Techniques are shown to identify testing and necessary supportive tasks; estimate required time, effort, and resources; keep testing on track; and monitor and evaluate the testing process itself.  Exercises enhance learning by allowing participants to practice techniques with an actual case.

Tutorial Outline:

·        MANAGING TESTING AS A PROCESS

·          TESTING INFRASTRUCTURE--PEOPLE

·        TESTING INFRASTRUCTURE--TECHNICAL

Learning Objectives: 

·        A structured Proactive TestingÔ process that yields better software and also cuts development time.

·        Cross-project components, roles, and tasks to provide adequate testing infrastructure environment.

·        Methods to reliably estimate testing task effort and duration, allocate resources, and keep on track.

·        Measures to monitor both testing of particular software and overall test process effectiveness

Robin Goldsmith JD is internationally recognized as an authority on business engineering and software acquisition/development quality, testing, and productivity.  He is a frequent speaker at leading conferences and formerly International Vice President of the Association for Systems Management.

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Tom Gilb

This tutorial counts as one day of training towards the Certified Software Test Professional requirements.

Narrative Description

40-60% of all software bugs which escape test to the field user have been traced to requirements and design specifications before coding. It has then been proved that inspecting the specifications sharply reduces this problem. This workshop will explore all aspects of Specification Quality Control in a hands-on practical workshop. Participants will actively experience the technology necessary to attack this quality challenge. 

Learning Objectives.

To learn the problem and the solutions mainly by means of personal experience. You will get a series of individual tasks, which will teach you basic principles of specification and quality control of specification.

Detailed Outline

1. The Ambiguity Test:  proving that specifications are unintelligible.

2. Rules: Selecting strong standards for specification which enable quality control. 

3. Process Control: Deciding on the economically allowable Major Defect density allowed for a                  specification to be released to your colleagues 

4. Planning:

    Selecting a suitable sample to check.

    Selecting checklists.

    Allocating specialist checking roles on the team.

    Deciding on checking rates using optimum rate data. 

5. Checking:

    Individual effort to find defects, and especially Major defects. 

6. Data Collection:

    Gathering data on the checking phase: defects, Majors, Rate, Sample size. 

7. Extrapolation:

    Calculating probable team result of unique Major defects/ Logical Page.

    Calculating total defect density.

    Calculating defects remaining after corrections {per page, total}.

    Calculating total future rework costs based on remaining Major defects. 

8. Drawing Conclusions:

    Can the document exit according to our Exit Conditions?

    If not, what should we do? 

9. Observations.

    What did you learn?

    What surprised you the most?

    What do you think you should do back at your own work about these things?

    What barriers do you see to doing them?

    What can you do to remove the barriers? 

About the Instructor: 

Tom Gilb is a freelance consultant, teacher and author serving clients in Europe and the US. He has written "Principles of Software Engineering Management" and is Principal author of "Software Inspection". He  specializes in software quality design and management. He lives in Norway, when he is not travelling. His work is available on  www.result-planning.com. He has taught and consulted with Medtronic, Cray Research, United Defense and other companies in Minneapolis. With Ericsson and Nokia in Dallas. Motorola in Austin. His methods are also in use at Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Ericsson, Nokia, Nortel, DOD and many other companies.   

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Tutorial #M5 (Monday 8:30 - 4:30 p.m.)

Denis Meredith

This tutorial counts as one day of training towards the Certified Software Test Professional requirements.

This one-day tutorial will provide a test design foundation for people who are involved with software testing.  This course will describe techniques for designing tests to support the objectives of each level of testing.   Finally, a few simple steps to follow to get started applying the principles covered in the tutorial will be provided. 

Outline: 

I.                     Introduction
         -          Definitions
         -          Experiences

II.                  Levels of Testing
         -          Test Levels Defined
         -          Categories of Testing
         -          Test Objectives
         -          The Testing Life Cycle

III.                Test Design Specifications
         -          Standards-Based
         -          Test Cases
         -          Test Procedures

IV.               Requirements-Based Tests
         -          Black Box Tests
         -          Functional Tests
         -          Non-Functional Tests

V.                  Design-Based Tests
         -          White Box Testing
         -          Structure-Based
            -          Measuring Coverage

VI.               Conclusion
         -          Summary
         -          Action Plan

What attendees will learn:

-          Why test design is important

-          How to write test specifications in a standard format

-          How to identify objectives of testing at each level

-          How to prepare test designs to support identified objectives

-          How to design tests to support both validation of requirements and verification of design

About the Instructor:

Denis Meredith is an independent consultant, concentrating in the areas of Software Testing and Quality Assurance; Tools Selection and Implementation; and Project Selection, Scheduling, and Management. He has often been asked to speak on these and other software engineering topics for various groups such as the DPMA, QAI, ACM, ASM, CIPS, STSC, and EDPAA chapters
and conferences. Mr. Meredith has conducted testing, project management, metrics, and estimation seminars throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Australia.

Denis has served in several different organizations since entering the software field in 1969. He has performed a variety of work, beginning as a programmer and moving through a number of assignments of increasing responsibility, including managing teams of developers, all development, managing an organization’s data center, and information systems manager. Denis was employed by a software vendor and functioned as product manager, product support manager, and finally as regional general manager.

Mr. Meredith has been a member of IEEE Unit Test Standard, Life Cycle Process Standard, Software Productivity Metrics Standard, and CASE Tool Evaluation and Selection Standard working groups. He holds CCP, CSTE, and CQA certificates. Denis has had articles published in Data Management, Systems Development, System Builder ,and Software Quality Professional
magazines and has written articles for Auerbach’s Data Processing Management series.

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Tutorial #M6 (Monday 8:30 - 4:30 p.m.)

This tutorial counts as one day of training towards the Certified Software Test Professional requirements.

If you are just beginning a metrics program, or have been struggling to make one work, this tutorial will provide suggestions for what you should consider counting and how to count it. After defining the basic elements that can be counted, and relating them to business needs, a “life-cycle” approach will be used to show how metrics from one development stage can support following stages, leading to an integrated measurement solution to your business needs and project problems. The methods presented in the tutorial can be applied to projects with no prior historical data, or to programs that are already underway.

Participants will learn:

·         Basics of measurement building blocks

·         Alignment of metrics programs to business needs

·         Practical examples of what to count and how to count

·         Integration of metrics through the life cycle

·         An approach to defect metrics that enables higher quality

·         Tips to help start or improve your metrics program 

Who should attend:

·         Project managers who need help in measuring their projects

·         Quality assurance engineers responsible for implementing metrics programs

·         Members of Software Engineering Process Groups

·         Anyone who needs to understand the use of metrics in software development 

Tutorial Outline

·         Introduction

·         What are your problems?

·         Definition of “good” metrics

·         What can we count?

o       Size

o       Effort

o       Cost

o       Schedule

o       Defects

·         Goal/Question/Metric paradigm

o       Making it relate to business needs

o       Relating what we count to our problems

·         How to count

o       Attributes in different life-cycle stages

§          Requirements

§          Design

§          Code

§          Test

o       Potential dysfunction – what NOT to do

·         Inspection metrics

·         Where to begin

·         Summary

·         Suggested readings

Biography:

Ed Weller has over 30 years of experience in hardware, test, software, systems, and software process engineering, with software process his primary area of focus for the last 12 years. Prior to joining STT full time, he was the senior technical leader for division level software process improvement programs at Bull Information Systems and Motorola’s Satellite Communications Division. In this role he has developed and implemented long-range process improvement programs with demonstrated success. In 1992, Bull achieved SEI Level 2 and ISO 9001 certification under his leadership. He is a certified Lead Assessor in the SEI CMM-Based Appraisal for Internal Process Improvement and instructor of the “introduction to the CMM”. He has participated in numerous assessments and software supplier process evaluations based on the SEI Appraisal model. 

Ed was a co-founder and first co-chair of the Software Inspection and Review Organization, a special interest group promoting the use of inspection process. He was a member of the SEI's Software Measurements Steering Committee and the DoD Software Best Practices Initiative Steering Committee. He is a member of the Embry Riddle Aeronautical University Industry Advisory Board, and was the Program Chair of the 7^th International Conference on the Applications of Software Measurement in 1996, 1999, 2000, and 2001, and 2002. 

His September 1993 IEEE Software article was awarded best article of the year honors by the IEEE Software Editorial Board, and his presentation "Using Metrics to Manage Software Projects" was selected as the best presentation at the 1994 Applications of Software Measurement Conference. An article by the same title was published in the 1994 IEEE Computer. He recently published “Practical Applications of Statistical Process Control” in the May/June 2000 IEEE Software, and “Applying Quantitative Methods to Software Maintenance” in the December 2000 Software Quality Professional. He was the author of the Software Metrics column in the Software QA Quarterly (now Software Quality and Test Engineering) and has presented seminars at several major software companies on the inspection process. 

Ed received his BSE in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and MSEE from the Florida Institute of Technology.  Ed is a Senior Member of the IEEE.

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