RSDC 2009 Call for papers

So it seems like RSDC 2008 has only just finished. In fact RSDC 2008 UK was only a few weeks ago! But things are starting up for RSDC 2009 already. I hear that call for the papers will open tomorrow. The website isn’t up yet so I don’t know what the theme will be but you can expect more stuff turning up at www.ibm.com/rational/rsdc over the next few months.

This will be the 4th year in a row for the Rational Software Development Conference (May 31 – June 4) at the Swan and Dolphin in Orlando, and I heard somewhere that the next 6 will be as well! Not surprising really as it’s a great venue for the conference.

It seems call for papers starts earlier every year, but that’s no surprise seeing as there are more people submitting and going every year. Technically I expect this year to be about the maturation of the Jazz platform, and I would speculate that we will see some cool things like the Visual Studio integration (since screenshots have already been released). There should be some interesting uses of RTC out there (I’m planning to talk about this myself). I’d like to see something about Bluehouse, Focalpoint, Telelogic and Rational Jazz stuff.

I think that the words Tara, Vega and MCIF will be extremely prominent

Top tips for giving a good webinar

I’m doing some webinars as part of the IJI Free winter webinar series and thought I’d publish some top tips for webinar presentation. These tips are mostly specific to using Skype (for teleconferencing) and WebEx (for webcasting)

0. BE PREPARED

As with all presentations/demos you should know your slideware and demo inside out. And have practiced it on the machine that you’re going to use for the webinar!

1. If you can use two screens, do!

• One for running the webinar WebEx window, chat window, attendees window and Q&A window (all easily undocked)
• One for running your PowerPoint/demo
• If you use multiple monitors and you’re not using UltraMon you really have no excuse. Go and get it now! Don’t let their rubbish website put you off it’s a critical tool for windows multiple monitor users.

2. Disable all bandwidth or screen interrupting widgets

• Outlook, twhirl, yammer, IM, etc. etc.

3. I find that significant animation played well but it’s probably a good idea not to over-do it!

4. Run a PowerPoint optimizer on your presentation before webcasting (pptminimizer recommended)

• It reduced my graphics heavy presentation from 19.8Mb to 6.3Mb

5. I use skypeout to call the teleconference on my USB speakerphone, that frees me up to use a keyboard/mouse properly

• When entering the pin number through skype it will pick up your keyboard number pad as a phone keypad if you select the skype window first
• When entering pins/passcodes using a keyboard do it slowly otherwise the teleconference software won’t understand it. If it rejects the pin try typing it again more slowly.
• Buy yourself an awesome skype friendly USB speakerphone

6. If you try to login to WebEx before the event has started you need to refresh the page periodically to enable the Join button when the event does start

7. Once the host hands you the presentation rights you should select the Share menu and choose to share an application

• In my experience doing WebEx demos over the years I’ve found WebEx desktop sharing to be a bit flaky whereas sharing multiple applications is easy and saves you any embarrassment of a popup window showing you message about your bank balance or last night’s shenanigans while webcasting
• Have the front slide of your presentation up before attendees join so they know they’re in the right place!

8. If you’re going to demo in a browser or show your desktop remove all shortcuts, personal bookmark toolbars and disable content addons that you don’t want the whole world to see.

9. The Attendees window shows you how many people are logged in, when they’ve left at the end beware of them joining back in again if you’re having a private conversation afterwards.

10. If you mention something covered by a later webinar in the series then plug it (view the full set of the IJI webinars here)

• In fact you should probably have a slide with them on a the end

RSDC UK 2008 Review

So RSDC UK is over and I’m finally getting a chance to blog about it. It was cool to meet so many old friends and new make new connections. There were even some blog readers that were able to recognise me IRL by mentally adding 6 years and a beard on to my blog picture Very impressive!

I think it was the best UK Rational event for a long time, and there were some great speakers. Unfortunately the chairs were uncomfortable, some of the rooms too small and the venue would do well to invest in some air conditioning. I suspect that going to an event at the Royal College of Phyicians in the height of summer (assuming we ever have one in this country again) would be enough cause to need a doctor. Regardless of that, and the amount of walking up and down stairs I did, I think it was a great event. The buzz was mainly about the Jazz platform and associated tools (RTC, RQM, RRC).

Day 1

The conference was opened by Graham Spittle (IBM SWG UKISA VP) and Danny Sabbah (IBM Rational Worldwide VP) who set the scene well for Erich Gamma (in real life) and Grady Booch (in Second Life). Unfortunately the Second Life link went belly up and we did’t get all of Grady’s keynote. Which must have been extremely annoying for Grady since it was 3:30am for him! Erich then took over and gave an excellent Rational Team Concert demo (RTC). When he started his demo I was a bit worried he was going to cover all of my planned demo too, but fortunately it didn’t overlap completely. Since he did the Monday keynote and I did the last slot on Tuesday there was enough time and quantity of information for the delegates so a little overlap didn’t hurt. Erich also did a panel discussion on Agile development in the context of Geographically Distributed Development along with Scott Ambler and Julian Holmes moderated by Anthony Kesterton.

The great TQ (Terry Quatrani) was also present speaking on Agile Modelling, I had a meeting to attend so unfortunately didn’t get to see her speak which is a shame because she’s always great. I did speak to people that did go who just confirmed that I’d have rather gone than have a meeting!

Following the break it was then time for me to speak along with Linda Weedon of PwC and Matt Archer (also of IJI) on “CUPID – Implementing the IBM Rational Unified Process at PricewaterhouseCoopers” which is all about our experiences in deploying UP using a practice based approach. I think the session went really well, we had some pertinent questions which is always a good sign of people staying awake and listening To close the day Ian Spence gave an excellent (as usual) talk on “Conversations in Context: Using Use Cases on Agile Projects”. Following an excellent dinner and a few glasses of wine kindly provided by a competitor it was time to commute home and eventually get to sleep at around 1am. It’s much easier at conferences when you’re staying at or really close to the venue! During the dinner there was a caricature artist or two wondering around who came to our table. Naturally we volunteered Ian to be caricatured and I managed to take a quick pic with my phone of him with his Mad Scientist caricature.

Ian Spence - the Mad Scientist

It’s a little known fact that Ian is also a Kung Fu master which is why his hand appears blurred in this pic. Fractions of a second later my phone was whisked from my hand at the speed of lightening.

Day 2

Day 2 was for some peculiar reason started 30mins earlier than day 1. This didn’t impress me, especially since like most people I hadn’t noticed until I was texted while on the train on the way in. Fortunately I was early enough anyway to get there on time. Mike O’Rourke opened the day with some description of the Rational 2.0 Roadmap (Jazz and future products). Rumours were confirmed about Rational Project Management and Rational Enterprise Reporting being released Q1 next year.

Ivar Jacobson then gave an excellent keynote on “Back to basics: Getting Good Software Quickly and at Low Cost” which focussed on using practices in a smart way, not following processes. I’ve seen Ivar speak many times, and many times on practice based development, which isn’t that surprising since I work for him but it’s always entertaining to hear the man speak.

I also had some meetings on Day 2 but the sessions that really stood out for me were Peter Eeles talking on “The Rise of the Development Environment Architect” which was based on his paper on DevelopWorks. This is an excellent formalisation of something that has been part of my job for some time. I also enjoyed Derek Holt’s talk on “RTC and the Agile Development Strategy”.

Finally to wrap up Day 2 I presented on own this time on “Live Jazz: Process Execution in IBM Rational Team Concert”. This started off with a demo of EssWork in Eclipse, shell sharing with RTC and creating a new process by composing practices as described in Ivar’s slideware at morning keynote. I then started executing my new process in RTC. It was the end of a long two days in a really hot room so I kept it quite light and I think it went well – and hopefully the audience got something different and new from the talk. If you are now kicking yourself that you missed this talk, fear not I’ll be repeating most of it as part of a webinar I’m doing in October – more details here.

Thanks to all those who attended my talks and came and said hello, especially those that read the Mac Daddy! I’ll post the slides in a few days

Free Webinar series for October 2008 from IJI

IJI will be running a bunch of FREE (that’s right not even a hidden cost!) series of webinars over the winter. Some of these webinars will be hosted by yours truly (the first two and maybe the last one). Since these things are free I really hope you’ll sign up and see some of the exciting things that we’re working on at IJI. Go Register!

Psst There will be some more FREE webinars later in the year too

	Ivar Jacobson International – Webinar Series Autumn 2008 We are very pleased to announce a series of FREE webinars for the software development industry. We will be sharing the latest market trends, ideas, products and ideas of how software delivery can be improved in terms of cost, quality and time. Here is the schedule for October. Register free at http://www.ivarjacobson.com/upload/webinar.html What’s new from IBM Rational ? October 3rd The UK Rational Software Development Conference will showcase many of the new Rational Tools. If you cannot make this event then this Webinar will provide you with the information that you need. We will be featuring Jazz, Rational Quality Manager and Rational requirements composer. (me!) Building successful software with Rational Team Concert.  October 10th Jazz provides a platform for collaborative software delivery. This unique environment takes software development to the next level, but, what is it? How does it work and where is the value? Hosted by our Jazz expert Mike MacDonagh (me!) this Webinar will provide you with an overview of this revolutionary technology. Practices: How they provide an Agile approach.  October 17th Practices help provide an Agile approach to process adoption. If you need a minimal level of governance but want to move to a more Agile approach then the IJI Practice based approach will provide you with what is needed. Minimal process for maximum value is a key concept that is explored while presenting an overview of the IJI Practices. Sustaining change with practices. October 24th Implementing change within an organisation provides a unique set of challenges, sustaining that change can provide an even greater challenge. This presentation looks at this particular issue and identifies a number of successful strategies to ensure that positive change is sustained. This ensures that your return on investment is maximized. Ensuring that you have good requirements. October 31st It is claimed that a high number of software solution failures are linked to badly described, gathered or managed requirements.  IJI promote the use of Use Cases as the key method that results in successful projects.  Use Case Express helps provide a level of consistency and sustainability that no other tool can provide. Register free at http://www.ivarjacobson.com/upload/webinar.html

Edit: It seems that the fine folks that laid out this press release didn’t consider the effect on my blog theme. Oh well…

Rational Quality Manager Beta 2

I hear that there will be a Rational Quality Manager Beta 2 released in about a week and half. Here’s my review of Beta 1

More info

See my first look at IBM Rational Requirements Composer here

See more stuff about Jazz in general here: What’s all that Jazz?

RSDC US Feedback

This week we got our feedback scores from the RSDC 2008 in Florida. I had two presentations this year and got am average of 4.27 out of 5 on my RPM talk and 4.7 out of 5 for my practice based RUP deployment presentation

I’ll be repeating the practice based RUP deployment talk at the RSDC UK in September CUPID – Implementing the IBM Rational Unified Process at PricewaterhouseCoopers Scroll down a few posts to see some info on the RSDC UK

As for the WordPress FireFox extension – I can see lots of people downloading it, but very few rating it or adding a review. I need those ratings to push it public on the FireFox extensions website. If you’ve tried it out leave a review and rating – please!

RSDC UK Agenda Published

The IBM Rational Software Development Conference UK (RSDC UK) will be held in (22 – 23 September 2008 Royal College of Physicians, London). At the moment the banner on the RSDC UK main page is misspelt Perhaps a little less “devlopement” and a bit more “testing” might be useful

Anyway, this promises to be a great event with some great speakers. On Monday the keynote will be given by Erich Gamma in real life and Grady Booch in Second Life. Then on Tuesday the keynote will be given by Ivar Jacobson. Another colleague some of you may have heard of, Ian Spence, will also be speaking. I’ll also be speaking at the event, once with my client presenting a case study.

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CUPID – Implementing the IBM Rational Unified Process at PricewaterhouseCoopers P05 Monday 15:50 – 16:50, Presented by Mike MacDonagh (Me! Principal Consultant, IJI) and Linda Weedon (Methods & Tools Manager, PwC)

PricewaterhouseCoopers UK IT chose to adopt the IBM Rational Unified Process (RUP) as part of a Capability Uplift and Process Improvement Deployment (CUPID) program. This presentation focuses on the use of RUP to manage a large-scale deployment of RUP and the effective adoption of the IBM Rational tools when facing challenges such as geographically distributed development, the requirement for process governance, and the tailoring of RUP to an organizational change management process.

Live Jazz: Process execution in IBM Rational Team Concert PPM05 Tuesday 16:30 – 17:30, Presented by Mike MacDonagh, (Me! Principal Consultant, IJI)

This session covers bringing software development practices to life using IBM Rational Team Concert. The demonstration includes kicking off a new project making use of Work Items, Agile Planning, Jazz SCM, Team Reports and other Jazz components in a seamless configured environment. I’ve posted a lot about Jazz and Team Concert on this blog so follow some of the links to look around – this session at the RSDC UK is basically a big demo so it’s your chance to see RTC and get a really good understanding of what it can do.

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I suppose I really should get around to uploading a new pic of myself. The one’s on this blog and all over the internet are about 6 years old… these days I’ve got a goatee beard and a lot more grey hair!

This conference is going to be a great gathering of thought leaders in the world of software development, an opportunity to see what’s coming in the future from IBM Rational and an opportunity to network with peers, partners and hassle friendly IBMers. So make sure you register and come along

Knowledge Centered Support in my project

Kelly Drahzal recently published this great presentation on Knowledge Centered Support which made me think a bit on the nature of support mechanisms. I’m currently engaged in rolling out a large and complex enterprise tool (Rational Portfolio Manager) and associated governance, portfolio management and project management practices in a large and complex client.

One of the things we need to do to get these pracitices and the tool embedded in an organisation is manage support. Our support takes two forms, tools support and process support. Normally when a person thinks they’re asking for one of them they’re actually asking for the other One of the interesting things about the support that my rollout team provides to the practitioners is that ultimately it’s a transient function – we won’t be the long term support team on this product, in fact support will be handed over to the centralised support function and the rollout team (comprised of external consultants (some IJIers, an IBMer and some independents) and contractors) will dissapate into the ether from whence it came. So obviously, as per Kelly’s presentation we’re very keen on knowledge centered support – we don’t want to waste our time, effort and brain power by re-recreating the answers to people’s problems.

So what do we actually do to try and avoid some of these problems and do some knowledge based support? We’re a transient support function so we don’t have and super tools or even specialist knowledge base management skills. What we do have is a highly skilled team and a number of communication channels.

We capture all support requests in a humble excel spreadsheet, regardless of their communication channel and categorise the requests into a number of categories. (Of course this gave me an excuse to write some cunning macros to keep everything updated automatically).

As well as providing lovely graphs the spreadsheet captures the issue and the response. As a result the team can all see who had what problem and how it was resolved. As problems are solved knowledge is created, capturing it in a spreadsheet is all well and good, and can be searched on by the support team but it’s not great in terms of sharing that knowledge broadly. (As it happens the support spreadsheet is publicly accessible via a guest account on our config management repository – but that doesn’t mean anyone is looking!)

To share the knowledge we communicate it through many channels. Sometimes it’s apparent that our education has been lacking some good guidance so we update the education programme (training courses, open surgeries, lunch ‘n’ learns). We have a wiki where we can post new bits of information, a message board/forum, emailing lists, laminated desk drops, a FAQ on the wiki and also some mentoring guides. One of the functions of our team is to mentor practitioners in the adoption of practices and tools and to do that we have a number of mentoring packages that we give to adopting teams. Ensuring that the mentors are all saying the same thing, giving the same solution to the same problem is important. One of the best ways of doing this it to get the mentors together to talk to each other, run through scenarios and gain consensus on the common answers. We also document these scenarios, sometimes in the practitioner facing User Guide and sometimes through mentor guides.

First Look: IBM Rational Quality Manager

Note this is from 2008, for a review of RQM in 2011 see CLM 2011 review

Yet again hats off the Jazz folks for making something consumable. With no effort involved I was able to download and install a Beta 2 of Rational Quality Manager (RQM) and login and get a default empty dashboard with no configuration at all 8)

RQM is a web based tool “for test planning, workflow control, tracking and metrics reporting capable of quantifying how project decisions and deliverables impact and align with business objectives.” It’s also Jazz based. A couple of weeks ago I did a First Look analysis of Rational Requirements Composer (here) so I thought I’d have a look at RQM today. I should caveat this by saying I’m not a QA/Test expert!

This being a Beta there are some bugs hanging around like the horizontal tabs having a higher z-order than the pop-up menus from the left navigation bar so you’ve got to be precise with the mouse to open the “My Test Plans” tab at the moment and it’s a little hard to create a new test plan :S If only the left menu bar auto scrolled down like the “related sites” links on the far right! Eventually I worked around this by constructing the URI to create a new test plan – https://localhost:9443/jazz/web/console/QM#action= com.ibm.rqm.planning.home.actionDispatcher&subAction=newTestPlan and just typing it into the browser address bar. I had this problem in FF and IE, anyway I’ve got a work around so off I go.

Here’s the blank empty GUI:

Once I got into the Test Plan editor I was able to start creating a structured Test Plan. I like this idea, as instead of a huge Word document with no structure here there are discreet sections with potentially seperate ownership. Obviously in my demo repository there are no requirements to hook into a test plan so I clicked the button to create one, this led me into the Rational Team Concert web interface 8)

Unfortunately I got quite a few errors in trying to save sections of my test plan, and also none of the editors for the various sections would let me type in them no matter how many times I hit the “Edit” link. The idea of structured test assets continues in the Test Case editor, although I had the same problems as with Test Plans here in terms of editing some of the content. I was however able to generate work items (which naturally I did twice) based on my test case and configured environments using the excellent lab management interface

Upon executing my generated work item the problem I found was that my test failed. There were no doughnuts to be had!

This being based on the Jazz platform there is of course a lot of reporting available (I shifted over to the sample Java PetStore test plan since there wasn’t enough data in my dummy project).

Conclusions

RQM gives you a fully web based quality management portal. The structured nature to managing test assets is a major improvement, and since this is Jazz based I’m sure it’s all deeply configurable for different ways of working and approaches to quality management and testing.

The integration of information from Team members, Test Plans, Test Cases, Test Scripts, Execution, Reports and Defects is seamless and intuitive, with requirements and defects being managed through the Rational Team Concert interface and of course the data is easily reported on.

I’d like to dig more into the integration with other tools such as Rational Team Concert, possibilities with Rational Requirements Composer and the relationship between process templates in these various tools. Not to mention migration paths from other QM/Test tools like the “classic” Rational tools and those from other vendors.

All in all it looks like an impressive, intuitive and powerful product but it’s an early access Beta and has quite a few bugs that can make playing with it a bit frustrating at the moment.

More info

See my first look at IBM Rational Requirements Composer here

See more stuff about Jazz in general here: What’s all that Jazz?

Some news on RSDC UK 2008

Coming up in September is the IBM Rational Software Developers Conference UK (22 – 23 September 2008 Royal College of Physicians, London).

As well as Ivar Jacobson and Ian Spence there will be yours truly speaking on:

• Practice Based RUP delpoyment – not sure when this session is yet
• Jazz and Rational Team Concert – on Tuesday based on the initial agenda

IJI are gold sponsors so expect to see our stand and lots of IJIers about. I also expect Julian Holmes from UPMentors will be doing his Process Wars presentation which is extremely entertaining Grady Booch will be presenting, although sadly not in real life, but in Second Life.