ASQ Software Division Region 1 Report for 1Q2007
by Peter Schulz

The Software Quality Group of New England (SQGNE) is into its 13th season, sponsored by the ASQ SW division and Sun Microsystems.  Meetings are held monthly, typically on the second Wednesday, from September through July at Sun Microsystems in Burlington Massachusetts. Topics cover concepts and techniques related to software quality engineering and the software engineering process. This past November, Laura Rose from IBM/Rational Software presented “Iterative Testing:Myths and Realities” which dispelled many common myths about testing. Brian LeSuer and Tucker Taft presented “Static vs. Dynamic Testing – How Static Analysis and Run-Time Testing Can Work Together” – in which he advocated the use of static analysis to make run time testing more efficient. The upcoming schedule and past presentations are posted on the website, which is: http://www.sqadvice.com/SQGNE_Home.htm.  SQGNE also maintains a listing of area jobs at: http://www.swquality.com/users/pustaver/jobs/

The Boston Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN) typically meets on the third Tuesday of the month, from September through June, at Mitre in Burlington,  Massachusetts.  In November, Steve Rakitin presented “All Software is Defective, Implications for the Industry” – as expected the presentation lead to a lively Q&A session.  In December, Michael Bragan gave a readout on  the progress of the SEI Performance Benchmarking Consortium. Coming up in January, Johanna Rothman will present exerpts from her book “Behing Closed Doors – the Secrets of Great Management”. The full calendar, newsletter, past presentations, and job postings can be found at http://www.boston-spin.org/index.html.

Looking ahead to late winter, the annual Boston SPIN and ASQ meeting will be held in late March, with Naomi Karten presenting on a yet-to-be-decided topic.