On Sunday afternoon, 3 October, two tutorials will be sponsored. All tutorials will begin at 1:00pm and are three and a half hours in length, including a snack break. The following tutorials will be presented:
Software Process Improvement for Practitioners (1:00 - 4:30pm)
This tutorial will describe a proven method for improving the quality of software products while reducing both the cost and the time to produce the software products. This method was produced over a 20 year period by the Software Engineering Laboratory. This tutorial is aimed primarily at software process improvement personnel, including project managers; however, many developers and technical leads will benefit as well.
The Software Engineering Laboratory's Recommended Approach for Developing Software (1:00 - 4:30pm)
This tutorial will describe the approach developed over the last 20 years by the Software Engineering Laboratory to develop software. This high level methodology, when followed, will consistently allow software developers (and their managers) to produce software on-time and within budget for both large and small projects. A detailed description of the methodology with useful forms will be provided with the course to take home. This tutorial is aimed primarily at software developers, but software managers will benefit as well.
A short description of The Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL)
The Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) was created in 1976 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA/GSFC) for the purpose of understanding and improving the overall software process and products that were being created within the GSFC Flight Dynamics Division (FDD). A partnership was formed between NASA/GSFC, the University of Maryland (UM), and Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), with each of the organizations playing a key role. Since a major GSFC reorganization in January 1998, GSFC sponsorship for the SEL has transferred from the FDD to the new Information Systems Center (ISC), Code 580.
For more than two decades the SEL has been collecting and analyzing software development metrics from software development projects within the FDD. The metrics collected for the FDD have been critical for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of new modifications to the software development process that are frequently incorporated within special experiments or standard projects within the FDD. As a result, the FDD was able to target and assess process improvements that resulted in a 75-percent reduction in software errors, a 55-percent reduction in system cost, and a 300-percent increase in software reuse. As a result of this history of achievement, the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in 1994 recognized the NASA SEL as the inaugural recipient of the IEEE Computer Society Award for Software Process Achievement.