Asia SEPG(SM) 2003

Dr. Eric De Smet

Dr. Eric De Smet, Avraham Y Goldratt Institute

'How to Maximize ROI of IT Projects Now & in the Future?'
For years organizations have made significant investments in IT projects on the promise of "High ROI".
However very few IT projects have delivered on this promise! Technology has improved tremendously, people are working harder & smarter than before, but despite the significant improvements made, "Why is it so difficult for IT projects to deliver the promised ROI"?
In the Keynote he will address:

The "root cause(s)": finding an answer to "What to Change?"
Theory of Constraints (TOC's) "holistic approach": dealing with the "root cause(s)" by finding an answer to "To What to Change?"
The resulting benefits for the organization as well as the project teams: A solid IT strategy which delivers the objectives set.
AGI's TOC Success criteria: finding an answer to "How to Cause the Change?"

Dr. Eric De Smet, Managing Director of Avraham Y Goldratt Institute Asia Pacific (AGI) & Partner of AGI USA the world's largest consulting firm practicing the Theory of Constraints (TOC). He is a Principal Consultant, & facilitator for Executive Management.
Dr. De Smet is a TOC expert with a track record of successful business development & implementation using the Theory of Constraint Thinking Processes, in the field of Strategic planning, Supply Chain Management, Production, Project Management, Marketing & Sales in Asia, Europe & USA.
He is a frequent speaker at international seminars.

D. Mike Phillips, SEISM, USA

'CMMI®: Improving & Integrating'
Over a year has passed since the full V1.1 CMMI® Product Suite was released, & more than six months since the release of CMMI®-SW. How is CMMI® being employed to better integrate the development & sustainment of software-intensive systems? How are we addressing software only organizations? The presentation will summarize the current deployment experiences to aid organizations considering implementation & engaged in initial use of the integrated model. it will highlight both current & planned product evolution, so that the community knows where the CMMI® effort is going, how it can upgrade to CMMI®, & how it can participate in the further improvement.

D. Mike Phillips is currently leading the CMMI® Team, a joint government, industry, & SEISM effort. The CMMI® Product Suite is an evolutionary improvement on the source models for software (SW-CMM®) & systems engineering (SECM) as well as IPPD. Before joining SEISM, Mike was first a test pilot & then an acquisition professional responsible for managing development of the software-intensive B-2 Stealth Bomber for the Air Force.
He has a bachelor's degree in Astronautical Engineering from the USAF Academy & master's degrees in Nuclear Engineering, in Systems Management, & in International Affairs.

Jennifer Keevers, Compuware Corporation, Asia-Pacific Region

'Quality Achieved through Structured Testing'
The presentation will cover problems currently encountered in testing, why things go wrong & how Quality can be achieved with a structured, defined, & repeatable process, using best practices. It will help understand how this relates to CMM® & ISO, & takes organizations from their current situation to the 'world's best practice' using a complete application reliability solution. The session will also cover the components involved in a Quality process for testing & how these are interlinked & dependent on each other. It will examine how an implementation can be successful & achieved in any organization.

Jennifer Keevers is the Quality Assurance Architect for Compuware Asia-Pacific. She has over 15 years of experience in Testing & Quality Assurance Management & Consulting to include advising large commercial enterprises on software test architecture, analysis, & design. She has also introduced & implemented a solid methodology for system testing, incorporating a business model, & structured testing techniques for several large-scale systems & applications.

Robert Firth, Institute of Systems Science, Singapore

'The Importance of Software Reliability'
The reliability of a software technology that runs the world around us — where failures are for the most part a matter of a little rework & a lot of frustration — is unacceptable when failure means:
- children are stranded at school
- passengers stranded at LRT stations
- doctors standing by their patient's side waiting for vital data
The talk will address some of the software reliability issues implied by ubiquitous & pervasive software systems, & proposes some guidelines & criteria for acceptable behavior.

Prior to joining ISS, Robert Firth spent eleven years at the Software Engineering Institute (SEISM), USA. He is familiar with CMM® & has taught Software Process Improvement (SPI) as part of the Master of Software Engineering program at Carnegie Mellon University. He was a member of the design & review team for the Ada programming language. Previously, as Associate Professor at the Royal Military College of Science in England, he had extensive experience in both teaching & consultancy for the Ministry of Defense & other government organizations.

Prof. Ken Jackson, Telelogic

'The Role of Requirements in Supplier Management'
The presentation will cover the relevance & importance of a sound process for managing requirements in all projects. It will emphasize on the relationship between Requirements Management (RM) & Project Management with particular attention to planning & management of risks, assumptions & other project issues. The presentation will also address the role of requirements in Supplier Management & introduce a generic process that covers all aspects of customer & supplier activities at each level in a multi-level development project. In addition, it will cover the role that requirements play in competitive bidding situations.

Prof. Ken Jackson is Technical Fellow with Telelogic, a company publicly listed on the Swedish Stock Exchange. Telelogic specializes in Requirements Management, Configuration Management (CM) & allied fields.
Prof. Jackson has over 30 years experience in Systems Engineering. He is a Visiting Professor at Ulster & Leicester Universities in the UK. He is also a thought leader on continuous improvement through successful deployment of requirement management processes.

Mick Spiers, QAI Limited

'Applying CMMI® Across Project Consortiums'
It is often said that if you take a Level 5 developer with a Level 1 acquirer, you end up with a Level 1 result. Recently, research has commenced to take this theory a step further. Many projects in this day & age are being conducted in project consortiums. These project consortiums can come in multiple forms but generally consist of a Customer/Acquirer, a Prime Contractor, & multiple subcontractors. Often these project consortiums consist of multinational teams with representations from across the globe. The research highlights that the constructed capability of the project consortium can be equal to the sum of all the weaknesses of the contributing parties & the end result can be project failure. The presentation will show the results of the early research & discuss strategies on how this problem can be overcome.

Mick Spiers is an SEISM-authorized SCAMPISM Lead Appraiser for the conduct of CMMI® based appraisals. He was the Director of Software Engineering & Systems Engineering for the Australian Department of Defense. He has led very successful process improvement programs that included the conduct of an extensive CMMI® based appraisal program over a three year period. He was also a primary author of the world's first extension to the CMMI® - +SAFE for Safety Management & Safety Engineering.

S. Y. Shenoy, Mahesh Badimi, Oracle India Development Center

'Effective Implementation of SQA Function Using a Virtual SQA Team'
The Practice describes the implementation of the SQA function using a virtual SQA team in the E-Business development division of Oracle India Development Center (IDC) at Hyderabad.
It discusses the advantages of implementing Quality Management System using the decentralized SQA model & the challenges that we have faced in implementing the model.

S. Y. Shenoy is a Mechanical Engineering graduate from Mysore University. He is working as Group Manager at Oracle India Development Center for Human Resources Management System product development.

Mahesh Badimi is a Computer Science graduate from Osmania University & a Management graduate from Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship, Bangalore. He is responsible for Quality function at the E-Business development division of Oracle IDC.

Rosemary Hegde, Kalpan Raval, Tata Consultancy Services

'Benchmarking Process Deployment Rigor Using Six Sigma'
The Paper deals with the development & deployment of a Six Sigma based process deployment rigor toolkit, which analyses software process capability determination frameworks & provides a quantitative measure beyond the maturity levels. The results of the analysis provide criteria for the selection of most appropriate techniques to address the specific pain areas in software process deployment identified by the organization. The paper also discusses effective usage of the Six Sigma tools.

Rosemary Hegde is a member of the Corporate Quality Group at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Ahmedabad. She is a Certified Software Quality Analyst, Software CMM® Lead Assessor, SCAMPISM Appraiser, PCMM® Assessor & an ISO Internal Auditor. She holds a Black Belt certificate in Six Sigma.

Kalpan Raval heads the Quality Assurance Group at TCS Ahmedabad. He is a Certified Software Quality Analyst & an ISO Internal Auditor.

Prof. Gopalaswamy Ramesh, Motorola

'Global Project Teams: Evolution, Challenges & Success Measures'
In order for a software organization to be competitive in producing world class products & services for the global marketplace, it has become imperative that geographically distributed talent is utilized. The session traces the typical evolution of global teams, the common risks & challenges faced during these stages of evolution & the key factors to watch out for during these stages of evolution.

Prof. G. Ramesh, consultant & Adjunct Professor in Anna University, Chennai & in IIIT, Bangalore, has over 23 years of industry experience spanning more than a dozen countries. He was a key player in setting up the highly successful India Development Center (IDC) for Oracle in Bangalore.

Dr. Rajendra K. Bera, IBM Limited

'Future Processes Must Tread an Evolutionary Path'
Major scientific & technological developments witnessed in the last quarter century now promise to unfold a future which will be remarkably dynamic & fast-paced. It also promises to be quite unpredictable in its impact on society, specially on its organization & its economic growth. Quantum computing, nanotechnology, unheard of computing power, deeper understanding of the human genome, speech recognition, & many others are now emerging from an incubation period into the real world. How they will shape the future & the new "disruptive" technologies they will spawn can only be guessed, seldom predicted. Hence IT processes will need to cope & deal with this unpredictable & fast-paced world. These processes, will need to ensure that creativity is not throttled & yet constraining enough to prevent anarchy in the new world. The processes must therefore have the ability to evolve, mutate, & adapt. In this talk, we will examine some of the key issues that one must bear in mind while creating processes & putting them into practice.

Dr. Rajendra K. Bera is currently the R&D Head of IBM Software Lab, India. Previously he has worked as a research scientist with the National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore; as a visiting Asst. Prof. of aerospace, mechanical, & nuclear engineering, University of Oklahoma, USA; & as a visiting faculty of aerospace engineering at IIT, Kanpur. His current research interests are in high performance computing related to grand challenge problems in science & technology, & in quantum computing & life sciences. He has been listed in the Marquis Who's Who in the World.