Free Webinar Library
- You are now able to view archived webinars that you might have missed,
that you would like to study more closely or you can share an interesting
webinars with a colleague
by directing them to this page. These archived webinars are
complete audio-visual recordings of previously presented live webinar
broadcasts.
Software
is a Risky Business presented
by Linda Westfall - There
are many risks involved in creating high quality software on time and within
budget. With ever-increasing software complexity and increasing
demand for bigger, better, and faster product, the software industry is a
high-risk business. When teams don't manage risk, they leave
projects vulnerable to factors that can cause major rework, major cost or
schedule over-runs, or complete project failure. Adopting
software risk management processes is a step the can help effectively manage
software development and maintenance initiatives. However, in
order for it to be worthwhile to take on these risks, the organization must
be compensated with a perceived reward. The greater the risk, the
greater the reward must be to make it worthwhile to take the chance. In
software development, the possibility of reward is high, but so is the
potential for disaster. Risk exists whether it is acknowledged or
not. People can stick their heads in the sand and ignore the
risks but this can lead to unpleasant surprises when some of those risks
turn into actual problems. The need for software risk management
is illustrated in Gilb’s risk principle. “If you don’t
actively attack the risks, they will actively attack you" [Gilb-88]. In
order to successfully manage a software project and reap the rewards,
software practitioners must learn to identify, analyze, and control these
risks. This webinar focuses on the basic concepts, processes, and
techniques of software risk management.
(NOTE:
Because of a technical problem with this recording -- please skip the first
2minutes and 40 seconds of this recording)
Click
here for the companion paper for the Software is a Risky Business
webinar
Risk
Based Configuration Control - Balancing Flexibility with Stability presented
by Linda Westfall - There
is a dichotomy in software configuration management. On one
side, individual developers need the flexibility necessary to do creative
work, to modify code to try out what-if scenarios, and to make mistakes,
learn from them and evolve better software solutions. On the
other side, teams need stability to allow code to be shared with
confidence, to create builds and perform testing in a consistent
environment, and to ship high-quality products with confidence. This
requires an intricate balance to be maintained. Too much
flexibility can result in problems including, unauthorized and/or unwanted
changes, the inability to integrate software components, uncertainty about
what needs to be tested and working programs that suddenly stop working. On
the other hand, enforcing too much stability can result in costly
bureaucratic overhead, delays in delivery, and may even require developers
to ignore the process in order to get their work done.
This
webinar explores risk-based software configuration control. It
also examines techniques that can be used to help maintain this necessary
balance between flexibility and stability, as software moves through the
life cycle. These techniques include:
-
Selecting
the appropriate type and level of control for each software artifact
-
Selecting
the right acquisition point for each configuration item
-
Utilizing
multiple-levels of formal control authority
Click
here for the companion paper for the Risk Based Configuration Control -
Balancing Flexibility with Stability webinar.
