13 April: Overview of Model-based performance improvement – 1 day (Johannesburg)
19 April: Overview of Model-based performance improvement – 1 day (Cape Town)
20-22 April: Introduction to CMMI – 3 days (Cape Town)
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20 April:Agile Forum
Topic:Continuous Integration
Speaker: Ahmed Omarjee
Overview: Agile software development applies techniques that aim to amplify the effects of standard development practices such as testing through the use of Test Driven Development (TDD) as well as quality control and early feedback through the use of Pair Programming and Continuous Integration. It is common to hear that “if testing is considered good” then “we should strive to test more often” and “if obtaining early feedback on quality is considered good” then “we should strive to obtain such feedback more often”.
Continuous Integration is an agile software development practice that implements continuous processes of applying quality control – that is small pieces of effort, applied frequently. It aims to improve the quality of software, and to reduce the time taken to deliver it, by replacing the traditional practice of applying quality control after completing all development.
The typical lifecycle includes members of a team integrating their work frequently, usually each person integrating at least daily - leading to multiple integrations per day. Each integration is verified by an automated build (including tests) to detect integration errors as quickly as possible. Many teams find that this approach leads to significantly reduced integration problems and allows a team to develop cohesive software more rapidly.
Ahmed will share his practical experiences and tips on adopting Continuous Integration using Hudson (http://hudson.dev.java.net).
Ahmed Omarjee is an experienced software developer at Psybergate who has been practising agile development at both a business and technical level for the past 6 years.
Overview: We have seen the use and abuse of the architectural views suggested by different architecture guidelines, but we seldom see the usage of those guidelines yield the desired results. Often the TOGAF guidelines are flouted to present an architecture for the sake of presenting it. But do these views always answer the questions related to all apsects of a system? We have seen many times the architecture views leave too many things to be interpreted subjectively by the implementation team leading to failure during implementation. Can there be a list of architecture views which could serve as a definitive list for all system architectures? How does the Solution and Enterprise Architecture meet the Business Architecture? How do we merge these successfully?
Here is a list of views suggested to see the system architecture from different angles and leave very little for subject to interpretation:
Topic:Report-back from the “SEPG North America” Conference
Speaker: Prof Barry Dwolatzky
Overview: “SEPG North America” is the Software Engineering Institute (SEI)’s big annual process improvement gathering. In March 2010 it was held in Savannah, Georgia, and was attended by nearly 1,000 process experts and software engineers from around the world. Some of the highlights of the conference were papers on Cloud Computing, CMMI and Agile, CMMI for Services and a “multi-model” approach to process improvement. There was also a forum on the upcoming CMMI version 1.3, due for release later in 2010.Barry Dwolatzky, Director of the JCSE was one of the few attendees from Africa.He will present an overview of some of the important papers presented at SEPG 2010.
Prof Barry Dwolatzky starts a new blog - "The Software Engineer" - with a debate sparked by an article in iWeek on whether the South African Government is failing the local ICT industry.
Barry aims in this blog to provide a specialised platform for the South African software engineering community. In it we will discuss the local software sector – its opportunities and challenges. We will discuss skills and how the broader ICT sector can position itself to create significant numbers of new and sustainable jobs. We will discuss how South Africa can export software products and services.
In an article published on 24th March 2010, Tracy Burrows of iWeek asks the question: “Is the South African Government failing the IT sector?” The article reflects on the recent CeBIT trade fair in Hannover, Germany. She notes the contrast between South Africa’s “fairly low-key (presence) - a small stand hosting seven local companies under the umbrella of the Department of Trade and Industry” and “the enormous stands provided by other countries … that outshone SA’s national stand”. The article also criticises SA government policy in relation to its lack of support for the local ICT sector. The gist of the article is that Government is indeed failing the local ICT sector.
Is that, however, a fair assessment? Government is only one of the stakeholders in the Sector. What are other stakeholders doing in support of the Sector?
The Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE), in association with CITi/BWB, will be presenting two CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) courses in Cape Town during the week of 19 April 2010.
The JCSE developed this new 1-day course to provide an Executive Overview to Model Based Process Improvement using CMMI. The course develops the argument that business drivers (and not CMMI Maturity Level) should be the motive for process improvement and CMMI adoption. The course is aimed at anyone within an organisation who needs a broad understanding of CMMI and process improvement. The course is not an official SEI offering. It does NOT replace the SEI's official "Introduction to CMMI", which is a pre-requisite for quality and process practitioners in organisations embarking on CMMI adoption.
This three day course introduces participants to the fundamental concepts of the CMMI model and assists companies in integrating best practices from proven discipline-specific process improvement models, including systems engineering, software engineering, integrated product and process development and supplier sourcing.
The course is composed of lectures and class exercises with ample opportunity for participant questions and discussions. After attending the course, participants will be able to describe the components of CMMI, discuss the process areas in CMMI, and locate relevant information in the model.
This course is presented by the JCSE in association with the SEI and CITI. It fulfils a prerequisite requirement for any course requiring an official SEI Introductory CMMI course and positions companies to thereafter begin preparing for a CMMI appraisal, which gives them a CMMI rating.
Costs Overview of Model-Based Process Improvement: One day course, R 2 000 ex VAT per delegate Introduction to CMMI: Three day course, R 8 700 excl VAT per delegate
Venue The venue for all courses is the Bandwidth Barn, 5th floor, 125 Buitengracht Centre, 125 Buitengracht Street, Cape Town (between Bloem and Pepper Streets).
Enquiries Any enquiries regarding the courses can be emailed to Ashleigh Gormally at the JCSE on Ashleigh.Gormally@wits.ac.za.
The Cape IT Initiative (CITI) invites you to visit an exhibition showcasing our Cape Software industry – its entrepreneurs and success stories, innovative companies, universities and research projects and venture capital landscape. The exhibition also includes a section on agile development in the Cape and case examples of successful Agile implementations; and much more. Funding support was kindly provided by the Department of Economic Development of the City of Cape Town. This exhibition runs concurrently with the 32nd International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE2010) but you do not need to be attending ICSE to visit the exhibition.
DATES: Wednesday 5 May to Friday 7 May 2010
VENUE: Ballroom West, Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC)
COST: Free
RSVP: No need to RSVP. Just arrive and sign in.
TIME: INDUSTRY: 09H00 – 17H00: The exhibition is open to anyone who works in the Cape technology industry or its supporting industries, from 09h00 – 17h00 on Wednesday 5th and Thursday 6th May and from 09h00 – 16h00 on Friday 7th May. STUDENTS: 11h00 – 12h00 and 14h00 – 15h00: Students are invited to attend between 11h00 - 12h00 and 14h00 - 15h00 on Wednesday 5th, Thursday 6th and Friday 7th May. SCHOOL LEARNERS: 16h00 – 17h00: School learners, their parents and teachers are invited from 16h00 – 17h00 on Wednesday 5th and Thursday 6th May.
We have invited a number of people from industry to be present to answer questions. For example, Vinny Lingham will be present at the exhibition from 11h00 – 12h00 on Thursday 6th May. The exhibition closes at 17h00 on Friday 7th May.
