metrics

Gathering and presenting clear information about quality-both product and process-may be the most important part of the test manager's job. Join Lloyd Roden as he challenges your current progress reports-probably full of lots of difficult-to-understand numbers-and asks you to replace the reports with a custom Test Manager's Dashboard containing a series of graphs and charts with clear visual displays. Your dashboard needs to report quality and progress status that is accurate, useful, easily understood, predictive, and relevant. Learn about Lloyd's favorite dashboard graphs-test efficiency, risk progress, quality targets, and specific measures of the test team's well being. Learn to correlate and interpret the various types of dashboard data to reveal the complete picture of the project and test progress.

Managers often fall into the trap of making sure that everyone is busy. It seems logical that we should keep all of our highly paid “resources” (ouch!) fully utilized. Surprisingly, optimizing for maximum utilization (busyness) actually creates less business value. Not surprisingly, it also can lead to quality problems, lowered job satisfaction, and even burnout. Join Chris Sims for this experiential session about the Theory of Constraints in which we explore better ways of optimizing how teams work. We will launch a fictitious aerospace company, build airplanes (albeit paper ones), and track our financial results. We'll apply the “Five Focusing Steps” from the Theory of Constraints: identify, exploit, subordinate, elevate, and repeat. We'll devise a process to evolve and improve our efficiency, our satisfaction in a job well done, and, ultimately, our profitability.

Measurement problems in software organizations are many: challenges with effort tracking; difficulties motivating the workforce to comply; resource management in multitasking and matrix organizations; attempts to "standardize" project status reporting or dashboards that run amuck; the misconceptions that fester and hinder defect collection and analysis throughout the life cycle; and management’s failure to truly understand and actually use measurement data and information to make decisions. Beth Layman reviews these thorny and recurring measurement problems-problems that plague even those organizations with established measurement cultures. She provides case studies of the problems and discusses their typical root causes. Beth concludes with practical advice on what it takes to institutionalize valuable, workable measurement practices within your organization.

Even though the code may have been written only five years ago, there it is-a sprawling unintelligible mess that nobody wants to touch. For most people and teams, this reality is a cause for fear and loathing-something we want to sweep under the rug. We can, however, choose to see “bad” code as a challenge to restructure and refactor into a maintainable design that serves the business for years to come. Although legacy code presents many constraints on design choices, it offers the opportunity for incremental improvement. Michael Feathers shows you how to practice design within the boundaries of what some see as unintelligible code and explains ways to make the improvement process manageable. See how you can escape the fear that holds you back from productive action. Find out how to start with what you have now and progress toward a structure that supports the work at hand and immediately adds value.