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Time to stop drowning

Re-engineering the Development Life Cycle

Workshop 170 minutes

Ken Harper

The complexities of software development are being increasingly acknowledged. Furthermore, the need for increasingly sophisticated end-to-end process automation, requires a further increase in capability. This session will review current thinking and consider newer approaches to software development, with a particular focus on organisational and cultural issues, presented by CBD, eCommerce, Customer-centric organisations and Integrated Enterprise Architectures.

Ken Harper (ken@reingenuity.co.uk)

Reingenuity Ltd

Ken is a freelance consultant, who specialises in far too many areas.

He currently spends most of his time consulting on Architecture and CBD, with occasional bouts of lecturing on OO Development, Enterprise Architecture and Project Management. However, he is particularly interested in the human side, of software development.

Topics

Shortcomings of the Waterfall L/C
A reassessment of CMM
Conway's Law
Patterns 'v' processes
Iterative and Incremental approaches
Challenges of I&I
New skills required
New Organisational structures

Benefits

This session will draw on the experience of those present and seeks insights into ways to improve the management of software development. Participants should leave with a number of new ideas and strategies. %

Session: Workshop 170 minutes	Level: intermediate
Audience: The session hopes to draw on the various skills of those present and should be of interest to anybody with experience of software development either as a customer or as a solution provider. Those with project management war stories are particularly welcome.	Max 30

Material

Some powerpoint slides will be used and reproduced as handouts

Delivery

Format

This session will be a highly interactive session with some exercises in small groups

Structure

15 mins intro re the Waterfall L/C and a general need for reengineering of our approach to s/w development.
A 10 min brainstorm in small groups on the presuppositions of the WLC
A debrief session - turning the the presuppositions into pre-conditions for the WLC (i.e. putting it into context as one of a number [toolkit] of process patterns). (10 mins)
10 mins re the CMM as a cybernetic model, moving to an organic model and role of patterns
10 mins clarifying understanding of Iteration and incremental dev. …especially re suitability for managing complexity and need for flexibility (incl 7+-2 demo)
10 min brainstorm re presuppositions
Debrief..and roll into session on skill requirements and new roles for Project Leader (10 mins)
Synopsis of 2nd half ..then BREAK (30 mins)
Brainstorm re cultural and organisation changes required to better support I&I (and learning generally) …and debrief (30mins)
Intro to the Learning Org. (20 mins)
5 mini-sessions (intro plus small group integration, then debrief) on: Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared Vision, Team learning, Systems Thinking (5x15mins = 75mins)
Summary and wrap up (10 mins, incl Logical levels of Change model if time)

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