ASQ Software Division Region 14 Report for 1Q2007
by David Peercy

This column provides members with information on relevant association meetings, conferences and other events in Region 14 – Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and to some extent Mexico. If you have information that you would like to share with fellow ASQ Software Division members, or you would like to get involved with the Division, contact me at depeerc@sandia.gov or 505-844-7965.

I have recently been appointed to the RC position for Region 14 and have yet to accomplish very much communication.  As such – I’ll let this newsletter serve as my introduction.  In the near future, I hope to set up an e-mail communication with all Region 14 ASQ members and identify key points of contact throughout the region.  If you have a SPIN group, specific section information, ASQ training sessions, ASQ certification questions, interest in any of these areas, or just information to share, please do contact me.

There are several possible activities that I’d like to investigate.  In particular, would a Region 14 website be useful?  Are any of the Region 14 ASQ members interested in being a “deputy” RC or perhaps a Section Councilor? Establishing a communication network would make it somewhat easier to disseminate information throughout this rather large Region 14.  As of December 2006 we have 254 ASQ Software Division members in 17 different Sections.  What would be a good improvement target for December 2007?  According to membership trend information, our ASQ Software Division membership (Region 14 as well)  has been declining over the past several years – why is that the case?  I will be soliciting ideas and concepts for a better ASQ Region 14 as well as inputs for the next quarterly newsletter in April 2007.

My main areas of interest are system/software integration, system/software reliability, system/software supportability, system/software safety and security -- and the many quality methods and techniques that support these areas.  I’ve been employed at Sandia National Laboratories for the past 16 years.  Feel free to contact me at any time.

Announcing the 16th Annual Software Engineering Process Improvement
Workshop organized by the Association for Software Engineering
Excellence (ASEE), the Dallas-Ft.Worth (DFW) SPIN.
Saturday, February 24th (12:00-5:30 PM) at Intuit (Plano)

Note the change of Workshop Location.  This year the SEPI  Workshop is being graciously hosted by the Management and Staff of Intuit Plano.

About the Workshop: This annual workshop promotes software process improvement within software development and maintenance organizations.

Workshop Features: Keynote: Mike Konrad Presenting, " CMMI Adoption Successes and Challenges "  Mike Konrad is chairman of the CMMI Configuration Control Board and has been a team leader of CMMI model development since 1998.

Other insightful presentations relating how different organizations have carried out process improvement and what they have learned:

“Implementing SPC for Peer Reviews” Jill Brooks, Raytheon NCS, North Texas, Software Engineering Center

“Stage Gates Process Control Points” Eric Wulfekammer, 7-Eleven
The Always Entertaining Discussion Session. Panel Topic to be Revealed Later

“Beyond the System Shall - A Journey from Good to Great Requirements” Tony Chen, Co-founder and Principal Analyst at Seilevel

Sponsor: Association for Software Engineering Excellence (ASEE) an SEI SPIN affiliate.  For more information visit the ASEE website at http://www.dfw-asee.org/