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EECS Distinguished Seminar Series
The Ideal Software Job

Dr. Watts S. Humphrey
Monday, July 23, 2007
2:00PM ~ 3:00PM, Harris Center 101

Abstract


Every so often, a software development project is so exciting and rewarding that the team members talk about it for years to come. Unfortunately, however, these exciting and rewarding projects are the rare exception. All too often, our projects turn into exhausting slogs through a seemingly endless swamp of test defects while management keeps pushing us to accelerate the work. In this talk, Watts Humphrey talks about ideal jobs and the characteristics projects must have to be viewed as ideal. He also describes why such projects are rare and what can be done to turn almost any project into an ideal one. Many organizations are now using the Software Engineering Institute’s Team Software Process (TSP)SM to transform their own working environments and to achieve the greatly improved development performance that results from ensuring that developers have projects that approach this ideal. In closing, he briefly summarizes the steps required to achieve these results and what individual engineers and their managers can do to learn about and to capitalize on these methods. Finally, he describes the upcoming TSP Symposium to be held at Lake Buena Vista in Orlando on September 17 to 20 this year and some of the TSP users who will be there to talk about their project experiences.

Short Bio


Watts S. Humphrey founded the Software Process Program of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a Fellow of the Institute and is a research scientist on its staff. From 1959 to 1986 he was associated with IBM Corporation where he was director of programming.

His publications include numerous technical papers and nine books. His three most recent books are
TSP: Coaching Development Teams (2006), TSP: Leading a Development Team (2005), and PSP: A Self-Improvement Process for Software Engineers (2005)

Mr. Humphrey holds five U.S. Patents. In 1991 he served on the Board of Examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige Board of Examiners National Quality Award. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Chicago, a master's degree in physics from the Illinois Institute of Technology, and a master's degree in business administration from the University of Chicago. In 1993, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronauts presented Mr. Humphrey with the Aerospace Software Engineering Award. Mr. Humphrey was awarded an honorary Ph.D. degree in software engineering by Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in 1998. In 2000, the Watts Humphrey Software Quality Institute was named in his honor in Chennai, India, and the Boeing Company presented him with an award for leadership and innovation in software process improvement.

During a formal ceremony at the White House in the spring of 2005, the President of the United States awarded Mr. Humphrey the prestigious 2003 National Medal of Technology for his contributions to the software engineering community. The National Medal of Technology is the highest honor awarded by the United States to America's leading innovators.

Dr. Humphrey's Flyer

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