David Gelperin (ClearSpecs Enterprises), Controlling Requirements Risk: A Catalog of Safety Tactics

November 1, 2007

Location: University of Minnesota, EE/CS 3-115

Twin-SPIN
For the Minneapolis/St. Paul Regional Area

Meeting Announcement:
Thursday November 1st, 2007
5:45-8:00 p.m. at The University of Minnesota
5:45 start for networking, 6:15 start for meeting.

EE/CS Building
Room EE/CS 3-115 (Look for signs)
Minneapolis, MN

Directions:
A map is available at http://onestop.umn.edu/Maps/EE/CSci/
Check out the detailed map under the “close up” button.

This Month’s Meeting:

Program Manager: Dick Hedger – Quality Software Technologies

Topic: Controlling Requirements Risk:   A Catalog of Safety Tactics

Speaker: David Gelperin - ClearSpecs Enterprises

Abstract:

Requirements development is hard.  Basic Requirements Development (RD) and management practices include: (1) identifying needs and opportunities (2) identifying and involving critical stakeholders (3) defining vision and scope (4) making a business case (5) discovering, specifying, prioritizing, and verifying requirements, and (6) managing versions and changes.  Effective use of these practices does NOT remove ALL major requirements-related problems – especially on large projects, 

Some (for example, in the agile community) believe that large-scale requirements cannot be done effectively – and they may be right.  History provides strong evidence for this view. 

 A different interpretation is that just doing the basics is not enough.  Basic RD practices must be supplemented with proactive Requirements Risk Management (RRM) tactics.  This presentation surveys 45 safety tactics for avoiding failures and mitigating, minimizing, and monitoring requirements-based problems.  Staffing, planning, preparing, and compensating are also discussed. 

RRM tactics include confirming needs, resolving conflicts, managing expectations, incremental commitment, frequent feedback, rich definitions, information patterns, picturing requirements, incremental reviews, and cross-functional teams.  These tactics can be used in any combination to reduce your requirements risk.

Presentation Material (740KB, pdf format)

Speaker's Bio:

David Gelperin is Chief Technology Officer of ClearSpecs Enterprises. David has more than 35 years experience in software engineering with an emphasis on requirements risk management and analysis as well as software quality, verification, and test. David co founded Software Quality Engineering and catalyzed the launch of Better Software magazine. He chaired the working groups that developed the ANSI/IEEE standards on software testing – 829 on software test documentation and 1008 on software unit testing. David received a PhD in Computer Science from the Ohio State University.  More information is available at www.clearspecs.com (under the About tab).

Twin-SPIN Mission Statement:
The Twin-SPIN software process improvement network (SPIN) is a regional organization established in January of 1996 as a forum for the free and open exchange of software process improvement experiences and ideas. Representatives from industry, government, academia, other professional organizations, and consultants are welcome to participate. Our mission is to help sustain commitment and enhance skills in the area of software process improvement through an active program of networking and mutual support. The organization strives to serve as a source of educational and experiential information for its members, other SPIN organizations, and the general community of software professionals.

Meetings are normally held on the 1st Thursday of each month from 5:45-8:00 p.m. Twin-SPIN is a non-profit organization and is sponsored by the University of Minnesota Center for Software Engineering (UMSEC). See: http://twin-spin.cs.umn.edu

2007 Sponsors:
Facility Sponsor
University of Minnesota, Department of Computer Science and Engineering

$2,000 Sponsors
University of Minnesota Software Engineering Center (UMSEC)

$500 Sponsors
Vital Images

$400 Sponsors
International Institute for Software Testing (IIST)

$350 Sponsors
PACT

$200 Sponsors
Goodrich Aerospace

$100 Sponsors
Glewwe Castle Brewery
Fissue
Quality Software Technologies
Unisys

Best regards. Hope to see you on November 1st
Paul W. Kraska PhD
Twin-SPIN Coordinator
612.823.6217
Paul Kraska <kraskapw@msn.com>
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