About SPIN
The concept of Software Process Improvement Networks (SPINs) was born in 1988 with a group of process professionals in the Washington, DC, area.
These professionals decided that they needed a practical forum for the exchange of ideas, information, and mutual support. They founded the first SPIN to meet these needs. SPINs worldwide continue to foster innovation in the software engineering practice.
Location: Room 125 Frank Knox Building
Time: 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
(Outside the entrance to PAX Naval Air Station Gate 2 at Great Mills Rd. and Route 235, Lexington Park, MD)
The SoMD SPIN Charter has been updated:
SoMD SPIN Charter 2008
Innovations in Process Design and Definition
Presented By Michael West on March 4th, 2009.
Many software organizations today are using 21st century technology to develop software, but are using 20th century methods to define their engineering processes. Last century’s process representations do not enable technical individuals and teams to perform processes effectively and efficiently. This talk unveils advanced concepts in process design and definition that resolve the problems inherent in the common text-based process description approach, and will inspire the audience with breakthroughs in process design and definition.
Michael West is co-founder and a Principal Consultant with Natural Systems Process Improvement (Natural SPI), a small, woman-owned consultancy and an SEI Partner. Natural SPI has eight years experience providing innovative and cost-effective process solutions to its clients in both the defense and commercial sectors of the economy. Mr. West has over 25 years in software and systems engineering management and process improvement, and he is author of the book, Real Process Improvement Using the CMMI. He frequently speaks and presents at conferences, and delivered the renowned ICSPI 2007 keynote address: Where has all the process improvement gone?
Sponsored By:
CMMI for Acquisition
Presented By Dr. Phil Miller on February 4th, 2009.
This presentation provides an introduction into the CMMI for Acquisition Supplement for the Introduction to CMMI® V1.2, in general, and a more detailed look at requirements. In this presentation Dr. Miller will draw upon the SEI's online, Blended Learning Course in the presentation. The objective is to show how CMMI for Acquisition is like the familiar CMMI for Development and to focus attention on the ways that the two models are distinct.
Dr. Miller joined the Computer Science School at Carnegie Mellon in July 1979 where he headed programming instruction, built programming environments, and researched their use. He joined the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) in 2005 where he heads an academic initiative. He conceived of, launched, and participated in the Mexican TSP Initiative, leads the SEI/Carnegie Mellon Master of Science in Software Engineering – Software Engineering Management (MSIT-SEM) effort, and has developed fresh, blended learning-based, approaches to selected courses in the SEI portfolio.
Sponsored By:
Stealth CMMI© - Process Improvement by Managing Work Products
Presented By Ron Abler, Standards Engineer, SABRE SYSTEMS, INC. on January 7th, 2009.
Ron Abler is a Best Practices champion, CMMI consultant, and an SEI-authorized CMMI Instructor. He served 20 years in the Navy as a combat search and rescue helo pilot and, for his last five years, as the Navy’s Program Manager for Office Automation. After retiring from the Navy, he was the president and owner of Automated Office Management Associates, authored NAVYDOCS (which automated the Naval Correspondence Manual), led the USAF’s first successful CMM Level 2 appraisal, served as the CMM SEPG Chair for four more CMM appraisals, as the CMM Independent Standards Compliance Manager for three NAVAIR Teams, as the Standards Engineer for the Presidential Helicopter IV&V Team since 2002, and the CMMI consultant for the Atlantic Test Range Safety Department.
With the ATR Safety Team Lead, Bob Jacob, Ron co-developed the concept of Stealth CMMI©. The central tenet of Stealth CMMI© is that SCAMPI appraises artifacts, not processes, so Stealth CMMI© turns CMMI implementation upside-down and starts from existing work products instead of from existing processes. To facilitate our approach, we have developed a tool called the Capability Waypoint Matrix©, which maps work products to SPs and assesses their goodness (i.e. maturity or capability) by imposing the GPs directly on the work products. The result is that CMMI can be managed completely via work products, which is what most non-CMMI managers already do anyway. The reduction in cost and effort for CMMI implementation is significant; so much so that CMMI can be adopted without fanfare (i.e. “stealthily”) and with little or no disruption to an organization’s way of doing business.
Sponsored By:
Tips and Lessons Learned for Leading an Independent Reviews
Presented By John Kennedy, Principal Systems Engineer, Mitre Corporation, on November 5th, 2008.
John Kennedy is a Principal Systems Engineer in the Pax River office of The MITRE Corporation. He is a certified SCAMPI B and C Team Leader and has either led or participated as a team member in Source Selection SCAMPI Appraisals, Independent Technical Reviews, program assessments, and source code reviews. He is a co-founder and past-President of the Southern Maryland Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN).
Mr. Kennedy served 25 years in the U.S Navy as a pilot and Aeronautical Engineering Duty Officer. His assignments included Test and Evaluation, logistics management, engineering manufacturing, configuration management, production programs, ship and shore aviation system compatibility, management of Fleet modernization requirements, and aviation Research and Development.
Mr. Kennedy is a 1968 graduate of the Unites States Naval Academy and holds a Masters Degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. He is a member of the National Defense Industrial Association.
Sponsored By:
Systems Engineering in the DoD today: Vision, Policy, Instructions, and Source Materials
Presented By Mark Schaeffer, Executive Director and Chief Systems Engineer, ManTech SRS, on September 3rd, 2008.
Mark Schaeffer is Executive Director, Chief Systems Engineer with ManTech SRS. Prior to joining ManTech, he was Director of Systems and Software Engineering (SSE), Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics). As Director SSE he served as the department’s chief engineer responsible for policy, guidance, and education and training for systems engineering, development test and evaluation, risk management, reliability and maintainability, quality, production and manufacturing. He also provided engineering and development T&E support to approximately 180 DOD programs across multiple platform groups. He was the DOD sponsor of the NDIA Systems Engineering Division; member of INCOSE’s Corporate Advisory Board; Chairman, Stevens Institute of Technology, School of Systems and Enterprise Advisory Board and; Chairman NATO’s Life Cycle Management Group and Continuous Acquisition and Life Cycle Support Management Board. The recipient of numerous awards, Mark is also a Fellow in the Institution of Engineering and Technology.
Sponsored By:
Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server
Presented By Mike Gresley, Developer Technology Specialist, Microsoft Corporation, on May 21st, 2008.
Mike Gresley will be presenting on Microsoft's Team Foundation Server technology! Come join us!
Sponsored By:
Requirements Engineering for Dependable Systems
Presented By Dr. William Bail, Computer Scientist, The MITRE Corporation, on April 16th, 2008.
The demands of systems on which high expectations of dependability are placed stress the normal techniques applied to requirements engineering. These demands are exacerbated when the systems are embedded and real-time. Considerations of fault tolerance, graceful degradation, degraded performance modes, and temporal challenges (latency and synchronization) fail to be fully satisfied by normal practice. This tutorial clarifies the role of requirements and presents a perspective on how requirements for dependable systems should be defined and managed. It specifically addresses the issue of stakeholder acceptability, allowing trade-offs of various system qualities to determine overall system acceptance.
Since 1990, Dr. Bail has worked for The MITRE Corporation in McLean VA as a Computer Scientist in the Software Engineering and Computing (SWEC) Department. MITRE is a not-for profit corporation chartered to provide systems engineering services to the U.S. Government agencies, primarily the DoD, the FAA, and the IRS. Within MITRE, the SWEC supports customer programs, consulting on various aspects of software-intensive development, ranging from requirements elicitation and management, to design techniques and practice, and to testing. The SWEC particularly focuses on transitioning emerging technologies into practice. Dr. Bail’s technical areas of focus include dependable software design and assessment, error handling policies, techniques for software specification development, design methodologies, metric definition and application, and verification and validation. At MITRE, Dr. Bail is currently supporting the U.S. Navy, focusing on the practice of software engineering as applied to large real-time systems. Prior to 1990, Dr. Bail worked at Intermetrics Inc. in Bethesda MD.
Sponsored By:
Lessons Learned In Seamless Integration of CMMI, TSP, and PSP Why All Three Are Needed
Presented By Girish Seshagiri, CEO, Advanced Information Services, Inc. on February 20th, 2008.
Girish Seshagiri is CEO of Advanced Information Services Inc., the only small business winner of the SEI/IEEE Computer Society Software Process Achievement Award. Girish has addressed Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG) conferences in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America. He has also presented at other conferences such as the TSP Symposium, SSTC, Systems Engineering Conference, CMMI Technology Conference, and International Conference for Software Process Improvement (ICSPI). Girish served as the Chairman of the Team Software Process (TSP) User Group from 2003-2005.Girish provided the leadership to establish The Watts Humphrey Software Quality Institute (SQI). Girish is a co-founder of the Chicago Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN), Heartland SPIN, and Chennai SPIN. Girish served on the IEEE Software Industrial Advisory Board from 2000 – 2006. Girish has MBA in Marketing from Michigan State University.
This presentation describes the experience and lessons learned over 14 years in applying model based improvement at the organization, team, and individual levels through Capability Maturity Model (CMM/CMMI), Team Software Process (TSP), and Personal Software Process (PSP). We found that CMM, while beneficial in many respects, did not address the teamwork practices and personal disciplines required for quality software work. Engineers will not change the way they work without very specific guidance.
The PSP provided the engineers with the skills to make a plan based on personal historical data, the conviction to defend it, and the discipline to follow the process. The TSP gave us the management framework to establish teams of self managed professionals committed to delivering substantially defect free software on time, every time. We employed a simple but effective mechanism of Process Improvement Proposals (PIPs) that helped us seamlessly integrate CMM, PSP and TSP. To date, AIS engineers, team leads and managers have proposed over 1,400 PIPs. The AIS Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG) has implemented over 1,100 PIPs.
The presentation shows how by seamlessly integrating CMM/CMMI, TSP, and PSP, the organization was able to achieve business strategic goals for substantially defect free delivery on time, every time. These results far exceed the reported benefits achieved by organizations that have adopted only the CMM/CMMI.
Sponsored By:
Simplifying CMMI/PI using Capability Waypoint Matrix
Presented By Ron Abler, Standards Engineer, SABRE SYSTEMS, INC. on January 16th, 2008.
The Capability Waypoint Matrix (CWM) was co-developed for the NAVAIR Atlantic Test Range Safety Department by Bob Jacob and Ron Abler. It is in the process of being patented by NAVAIR. Ron first presented the concept at the SEI/NDIA "CMMI V 1.2 and Beyond" workshop in Montreal on July 10, 2007, where it was successfully peer-reviewed. Participating reviewers included Mike Phillips, the CMMI Program Manager at the Software Engineering Institute; Bill Peterson, the Industry CMMI Sponsor at the National Defense Industrial Association; Bob Rassa, the DoD CMMI Sponsor at the Office of the Secretary of Defense; as well as several invited CMMI Instructors and SCAMPI Leads. The consensus was that CWM is CMMI-compliant and complete. At the SEI's invitation, Bob Jacob presented a 45-minute version of this presentation at the 7th Annual CMMI Technology Conference in Denver on November 13, 2007. Following that, Bob and Ron have been invited to submit the CWM as a technical report for publication by the SEI.
As befits a tool that claims to simplify CMMI, CWM is, first and foremost, simple and intuitive. It stands CMMI on its head by starting with the artifacts and work products that SCAMPI Teams will be looking for and that already exist in every organization. By working up from the artifacts, instead of down from idealized, ethereal, and seldom-achieved process diagrams, CWM eliminates most of the history, philosophy, info-only material, and the other fluff that so-called experts love, that practitioners hate, and that SCAMPI Teams couldn't care less about.
Sponsored By:
Navy Software Process Improvement
Initiative: Putting Systems Engineering Rigor into Software Acquisition
Presented By James A. Dietz on October 24, 2007
Jim Dietz is currently the site manager for the MITRE Corporation office in Lexington Park MD. He currently serves as a senior advisor to the ASN RDA Chief Systems Engineer’s office in support of software systems engineering efforts including the software process improvement initiative (SPII) and has been instrumental in establishing improved software acquisition practices for the Navy. He also serves as a senior advisor to the ASD NII, Intelligence and Information Assurance (I&IA) office as well as the AT&L Software Engineering and Systems Assurance office.
Jointly Sponsored By:
And SoMD SPIN
Process Institutionalization: How to get your projects to “Play Ball”
Presented By Dan Tucker, September 19, 2007
Mr. Tucker is an Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, with over 13 years of experience in software development and process improvement. His current role in Booz Allen’s Process Improvement Organization focuses on quantitative measurement and analysis, where he is responsible for maintaining the organization’s measurement program, and assisting projects with implementation of processes related to quantitative analysis. Mr. Tucker has a B.S. in Applied Mathematics.
Abstract
At the core of any process improvement initiative is the definition of repeatable processes that can be leveraged to meet the goals of the organization. These goals are fairly similar in nature across the software and system development industry – organizations typically want to increase product quality, reduce operating costs, or proactively reduce risk, to name a few. However, once new processes have been defined and successfully piloted, the challenge of institutionalization comes into play. Return on investment models, or predictive defect removal rates don’t always resonate with those projects resistant to change. How can organizations gauge if the processes leveraged by “early adopters” are being embraced and implemented by other facets of the organization? What models exist to quantify and communicate the situation? And finally, what can a process improvement organization do to improve institutionalization, especially among those projects that are less inclined to modify their operating procedures? Attendees of this presentation will hear answers to these questions, as well as data from a case study that reflects how these efforts have succeeded within a software process improvement organization.
Agenda
- What is Institutionalization?
- Measures to Gauge Institutionalization, and how to React
- Mechanisms for Reporting
- Promoting Institutionalization
- Results/Case Study (Dashboard View)
10 Proven Principles for Process Improvement and Organizational Success
Presented By Dr. Bechtold, April 18, 2007
Dr. Bechtold, president and principal consultant of Abridge Technology, has over twenty five years of progressive experience in the development, management, and improvement of complex software systems, architectures, processes, and environments. This experience includes all aspects of organizational change management, process improvement, process auditing, process definition and modeling, workflow implementation, and managerial and technical training.
Additionally, Dr. Bechtold works with both industry and government in the performance of software capability audits, contractor process maturity monitoring, software process improvement, and acquisition process improvement. As a certified SEI Instructor, he is a frequent collaborator with the Maryland-based Fraunhofer Center offering a variety of training classes including the 3-day SEI course Introduction to CMMI.
Dr. Bechtold is an adjunct instructor for George Mason University and teaches the Master’s level course, Software Project Management. Dr. Bechtold has over 65 publications to his name.
For more information refer to his web site at http://www.abridgetechnology.com/
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SCAMPIE A Preparations
Presented By John Kennedy, March 21, 2007
John Kennedy is a Lead Systems Engineer in the Pax river office of The MITRE Corporation. He is an authorized SCAMPI Team Leader and has either led or participated as a team member in Source Selection SCAMPI Appraisals, Independent Technical Reviews, program assessments, and source code reviews. He is a co-founder and past-President of the Southern Maryland Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN).
Mr. Kennedy served 25 years in the U.S Navy as a pilot and Aeronautical Engineering Duty Officer. His assignments included Test and Evaluation, logistics management, engineering manufacturing, configuration management, production programs, ship and shore aviation system compatibility, management of Fleet modernization requirements, and aviation Research and Development.
Mr. Kennedy is a 1968 graduate of the Unites States Naval Academy and holds a Masters Degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. He is a member of the National Defense Industrial Association.
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Developing Systems with Software and COTS Hardware
Presented By Pat Kohli, February 21, 2007
Pat is a computer scientist assigned to 4.5.3.3. He works for PMA-231 as the Open Architecture (OA) IPT lead, in the OA/FORCEnet IPT of the Network Centric Warfare IPT. Prior to this he worked at Saint Inigoes for 4.5 and developed a prototype next generation flight data recorder, using COTS components, to meet incident reporting, maintenance and FOQA needs. Pat also supported the old PMA-282 which did weapon control systems for guided missiles. Pat has an MS in computer Information Systems from Florida Tech.