Detroit presentation: “The Politics of Metrics”

I’ll be in Detroit on Tuesday, April 15th, giving a presentation on “The Politics of Metrics” at the “Software Best Practices” conference. If you’re not there in person, you’ll miss all of the clever jokes, subtle explanations, question-answer dialogue, etc.; but you can download the 1.5-megabyte PDF version of the presentation by clicking on the […]

Moving Beyond SEI-CMM level 1

I gave a presentation at the “Software Best Practices” conference in Orlando yesterday on the topic of “Moving Beyond SEI-CMM level one.” Of course, you had to actually be there to hear all of the subtle jokes, sly innuendos, and double-entendres … but if you’d just like to see the presentation itself, you can […]

The politics of software metrics

I’m giving a presentation next month on the politics associated with introducing a software metrics initiative in a typical IT organization. Most presentations, articles, and books that I’ve seen in this area focus on why it’s important to measure various things about software development … and what things we should be measuring … and how […]

Hello Austin: here’s V07 of my “Top Ten Software Engineering Concepts” presentation

For the “Software Best Practices” seminars where I’ll be speaking in Austin tomorrow, I’ve made a substantial number of updates and refinements to the material that I presented in Ft. Lauderdale a couple days ago. The material is fundamentally the same as before, but I’ve added a couple more recommended books, papers, and articles — […]

Hello, Ft. Lauderdale: here’s V06 of my “Top Ten Software Engineering Concepts” presentation

For the “Software Best Practices” seminars where I’ll be speaking in Ft. Lauderdale and Austin this week, I’ve provided several different ways of downloading the presentation materials. None of the material is copyrighted; it’s all “open source,” and you’re welcome to use it, modify it, share it with friends and colleagues, and collaborate with me […]

Top Ten Software Engineering Ideas, Albany-style

I’m participating in a “Software Best Practices” seminar in Albany tomorrow (click here for details on future venues of this seminar, hosted by IT Metrics & Productivity Institute — including Ft. Lauderdale and Austin next week), and I’ll be giving a talk on the “Top Ten Software Engineering Ideas.”

To download the 20.5-megabyte PDF of the […]

Top Ten Software Engineering Ideas, in Jacksonville

I‘ll be giving a presentation on the “top 10 software engineering concepts” at an ITMPI software best-practices seminar in Jacksonville, FL today; for more details about this and future seminars (including, for example, Albany and Austin next month), click here.

If you’d like to download a 18.4-megabyte PDF of the one-page mind-map for the presentation, click […]

Top 10 Software Engineering Concepts, in Detroit

I’ll be giving a presentation on the “top 10 software engineering concepts” at a software best-practices seminar in Detroit today; for more details about this and future seminars (including, for example, Jacksonville next week, and Austin next month), click here.

If you’d like to download a 15.9-megabyte PDF of the one-page mind-map for the presentation, […]

Capers Jones has a new book

Capers Jones has just published a new edition of his vintage-1998 book, Estimating Software Costs (2nd edition, McGraw-Hill, 2007). It’s not light reading: 664 pages full of tables and charts, lists of techniques and strategies for estimating cost, schedule, defects, and maintenance effort for different kinds of software projects.
In addition to, or possibly instead of, […]

Metrics, process improvement, and my personal diet

The annual checkup with my doctor is always unpleasant, because (a) he makes me get on the scale right away, and (b) he offers no “silver-bullet” quick-n-easy solutions for the inevitable bad news:
“You’ve gained ten pounds this past year, Mr. Yourdon.”
“What?!?” I exclaim, with just the right amount of shock and righteous indignation. “How could […]