The Boston SPIN would really appreciate volunteers to facilitate a Roundtable once or twice
this year from 6:00 - 6:45 p.m., before the general meeting and speaker presentation.
If you've never volunteered before, we have facilitator guidelines to make it easier,
and we offer a mentoring program.
Also, you don't have to be an expert on a topic to lead a topic.
What does the Facilitator gain from the experience?
Recognition by your company
Praise from the Steering Committee
Increased leadership skills (good for your company and your resume)
Confidence in public speaking, in a supportive environment
Appreciation from Roundtable participants
Satisfaction for making a difference because you made a Roundtable happen.
What do Roundtable participants gain?
Insights on software process improvement from people of many different backgrounds
Knowledge shared by more experienced participants
Pointers on techniques and methodologies
Practical solutions to real life problems
Networking with peers
References to helpful materials
Satisfaction from sharing their knowledge.
Volunteer to facilitate a topic (TBA below) by e-mail to:
We have guidelines for facilitators to make it easier.
(All are welcome to attend any scheduled Roundtable, no reservation needed. Just arrive by 6:00 pm.)
Open Topics for Roundtables
(Please volunteer - suggestions welcome)
9/16/2008
Performance Metrics for Software Department Leaders.
Best practices in project / department measurement that drive
software execution excellence.
Facilitated by:
Ross Seider
10/21/2008
Agile Methods: Dogmatic -vs- Pragmatic Facilitated by:
Steve Berczuk
11/18/2008
Agile Coaching Clinic
Are you trying to shepherd your fellow team mates along the road to
agile? Are you struggling to get your managers to allow time for
refactoring? For pairing? Has your product owner gone AWOL? This
roundtable will discuss these types of issues, present possible
solutions and engage in open conversation to see how organizations
are solving similar problems.
Facilitated by:
Nancy Van Schooenderwoert
12/16/2008
Digital Forensics Methodology
Is your company prepared to respond to an E-Discovery request or
employee misconduct involving a company computer? What is a digital
forensics methodology? What are some of the software tools of the
trade? Facilitated by:
Leo Manning
1/20/2009
Managing Software Requirements
Continually updating the traceability from the software requirement
specs to the design specs downwards and upwards through all the
documentation is necessary to prevent or mitigate Requirements Creep
and contradictions among the various specifications. Revising the
requirement specs for technical accuracy and testability is vitally
important. Let's discuss just what that means. Facilitated by:
Alice Brown
2/17/2009
Common mistakes when implementing Agile and Scrum
Transitioning to Agile and Scrum in organizations with different
cultures and project management traditions can lead to perception
problems of agile methodologies. This roundtable will investigate
several of the most common misconceptions and discuss possible
solutions. Facilitated by:
Peter Toudjarski
3/17/2009
Collaboration experiences in Applications Development Facilitated by:
Rick Wahlberg
4/21/2009
Transitioning to agile: solving problems of transition Facilitated by:
Johanna Rothman
5/19/2009
Running Effective Scrum Meetings
All Agile methods include a practice called the "daily standup
meeting". What is the purpose of this meeting? How can we get the
most out of it? Facilitated by:
Dan LeFebvre
6/16/2009
In Agile, where does developer testing end and tester testing
begin?
Even though anyone can work on any task in agile, we still each
bring our own, unique skills to the table. The key to effective
agile is not minimizing our differences, but building upon each
person's strengths. Join us for this discussion on how agile teams
build quality into their process and how each member contributes to
that quality. Facilitated by:
Abby Fichtner, Nate Oster
Requested Topics: Facilitators are needed for
roundtables on the following topics requested by SPIN members. If you
have experience to share on one of these or another topic please
contact the roundtable chair
Developing Section 508-Compliant Applications
Experiences with SEI's PSP and TSP
SEPG Operations
Techniques for Estimating the Cost of Software
QC Tools
Test Automation
Identifying and Inserting New Technology into a Project
Open Topics for Roundtables
(Please volunteer - suggestions welcome)
9/18/2007
Beyond Agile Teams: What Managers Need to Know to Sustain Agile
Adoption.
Exploring reasons why Agile adoption initiatives so often flounder.
Facilitated by: Nancy Van Schooenderwoert
10/16/2007
Software Reliability: Models, Predictions, Methods, and Definitions.
Discuss the consequences of software malfunction; how to predict defects before they happen; and methods, models, and tools. Facilitated by: Obaid Qadri
11/13/2007
TBD
12/18/2007
1) Security and web based deployments.
Rick has done "quite a bit of work on web services and the
attendant security" and is interested in hearing what others have
thought on the subject. Facilitated by: Rick
Wahlberg, PMP
2) Project management challenges associated with
software projects when the performing team is geographically
distributed.
As a starting point, the discussion will explore
development methodology, project organization, management and
development tools. Facilitated by: Dick
Healy and Spencer Jones
1/15/2008
Web Services Development and Virtual Teams Facilitated by: Rick
Wahlberg, PMP
2/19/2008
Project Selection and Return of Investment (ROI).
Following an iterative-incremental paradigm, agile projects are
ideal for early and frequent releases. This mechanism enables many
organizations to gain a competitive advantage through accelerated
return-of-investment. With this approach, many projects paid
themselves back before they were even completed. In
addition, iterations can be used to select projects in a more
dynamic fashion, helping development organizations to spend their
resources on their most promising projects. Facilitated by: Joe
Krebs
3/18/2008
Lean/Agile/Scrum/XP Software Development:
Truth and Myth and Absolute Truth.
There has been an explosion of interest in these approaches to fix our history
of software development disfunction. All of us who have been in the business for
some time, know the failure rate. This roundtable will be a discussion of why
that's the case and what we are learning so we never repeat those mistakes. This
includes includes identifying the invariants in us humans and in our problem
domain. Those invariants can justify a claim of appropriate certainty - in
context. Believe it or not! Facilitated by: Jay
Conne
N/A
Joint meeting with ASQ
5/20/2008
How can we realistically measure Software Quality Level? Facilitated by: Stephanie
Beach
6/17/2008
How do you track an agile project without a detailed plan? Facilitated by: Daniel
LeFebvre
