Time

Wednesday, 17 September 2008
18h15

Venue

Bandwidth Barn
125 Buitengracht Street
Cape Town
Click here for a map

Agenda

18:15 Welcoming and Introduction
   Albert Visagie
18:20 The Business Analyst's Perspective on Quality
   Emile Botha
19:00 Value-based Software Engineering using the Complex Adaptive Systems Software Engineering Framework
   Joseph Balikkudembe
19:40 Closing and Thanks
   Albert Visagie
19:45 Networking & Discussion

Abstracts

The Business Analyst's Perspective on Quality

Business tends to fixate on symptoms and see these as causes. Delivery teams tend to take the requirements that result at face-value and then proceed to try and satisfy these by building some system. The challenge is that the Customer does not solve their problem, or to continual scope change.

The systems approach can be effectively applied to a Business, allowing one to take a Lateral / Holistic view of what is actually going on. This approach can be applied to a number of delivery methods in order to improve the delivery and product of IT companies and Teams.

In order to do so, one has to start at the beginning, by continually answering the question: What is the actual Business Problem that we are attempting to solve?

This question ripples throughout the entire delivery process. Awareness of it can help delivery teams to be more effective at delivery. It also goes a long way at establishing and growing the Customer relationship.

Value-based Software Engineering using the Complex Adaptive Systems Software Engineering Framework

It is still difficult to quantify the relative probabilities and size of losses on software projects. This affects practical approaches for determining a risk-balanced "sweet spot" operating point for software development projects. The impact of which leads to recurring losses on projects, revenue erosion and unsuccessful IT projects among others. The best solution is to integrate verification techniques on software projects that assist in assessing, detecting and evaluating business value proposition on projects before commitment is made on them. This work draws on techniques from economics as well as computer science to develop new predictors in software development. It demonstrates a technique that predicts properties of the finished software system before the expense of software development is incurred using requirement dependency matrics. The goal is to develop a unifying model for design evaluation techniques to provide a useful technique for monitoring and controlling the cost, schedule, and progress of complex issues in software development; specifically by applying decision analysis models and techniques in software engineering to support the value-based paradigm. Even in its preliminary state, this framework is sufficiently expressive to be useful in explaining and characterizing project evaluation techniques.

Speaker Profiles

Emile Botha

Emile graduated in Electronic Engineering from the University of Stellenbosch. He has since then been working in the IT & Telecoms industry, for the past 18 years. Through his extensive experience in establishing and improving Business Systems on a company-wide level, he gained much insight into the People, Process and Technology challenges that exist.

He has been involved in establishing a company-wide business system, migrating 200+ web sites, implementing ITIL-aligned business processes and systems, integrating various systems, building Call Centres and generally most complex systems found in business. In this time he gained extensive experience as Project Manager, Architect, Business Analyst and Change Agent.

He is now venturing out as entrepreneur, to support and bring together Contractors and other Specialists in the IT Industry.
www.GuruMesh.co.za
www.ServeLime.com

Joseph K Balikuddembe

Joseph K Balikuddembe is currently a Senior Systems Analyst with Complex Adaptive Systems (Pty) Ltd (CAS). He has over 6 years in Information Systems Analysis and Information Management. Before joining CAS, Joseph worked as an Information Manager for WBS television in Uganda and as a Systems Analyst for Jobscan Computer Investments Ltd. Throughout his career, Joseph has been exposed to various software development processes including Agile, RUP, OOSAD and development frameworks. He has a working knowledge of various programming languages and database systems including Java, C#, HTML, Oracle, SQL Server and MySQL respectively. He has strong experience in engineering Business Process Management systems, Case Management systems as well as workflow based systems. Building on his first degree in Library and Information Science (Makerere, Kampala) and a Masters in Information Technology - UCT, Joseph is actively researching emergent software management and economics in an agile environment specifically focusing on the value-based approaches of software development for his doctoral studies at UCT.