Tucson Chapter of SPIN

All: If you plan on attending, please e-mail us at
AttendMeeting@TucsonSPIN.org so that we can plan the food, beverages and
facilities.

Date: Thursday evening, October 3, 2002

Location: Misys Hospital Systems, 4801 E. Broadway (One block east of Swan

on north side of Broadway)

Guest Speaker: Mary Behnke and Brad Bittorf, Raytheon Missile Systems

Topic: The Role of the Software Process Engineer (SPE)

Agenda:
5:45 to 6:15 PM: Refreshments and networking
6:15 to 6:30 PM: Business and announcements
6:30 to 8:00 PM: Evening speakers

Topic Abstract:

Software programs face significant technical and organizational challenges
when institutionalizating new processes.  The role of a program or
department Software Process Engineer (SPE) is evolving as a means to have
programs more effectively and more thoroughly adopt processes.  By using
SPEs, programs enable faster adoption of organizational processes.  As
practitioner agents, SPEs have served to improve the useability of
organizational processes through pragmatic and timely feedback about both
initiatives and practical "front-line" needs.  SPEs provide "process-savvy"
assistance to program leaders, thereby realizing more thorough program
understanding and practice of processes within programs.

Why is this Important to Me?

Even on small teams, the importance of "bridging the gap" between current
and more efficient and effective software practices still holds.  Business
goals and objectives demand this emphasis.  Typically, though,
organizational software process representatives (usually manifested in a
Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG) or similar group) focus primarily
on the strategic "what to do" level requirements and have little time left
to properly identify more effective methodologies, tools and automation by
which the requirements are manifested in the software process.  The SPE
role helps to fill this need by more directly working with the software
development team members to identify the most effective implementation for
the team.  This role can be easily tailored to any team size.

Presenters:

Mary Behnke:  Mary has over 15 years of software development experience,
starting as a software developer and tester  and including roles as a
software lead for development and maintenance programs, Software Process
Engineer, Software Quality Assurance Engineer, Software Configuration
Management Engineer and software team manager.  Mary has worked in various
business domains, from commercial IT to government contracting.

Bradley Bittorf:  Brad (our Tucson SPIN Vice-Chairperson) has over 19 years
of software development experience.  He started as a software developer
(for 12 years) and computer system administrator (for 2 years).  Since
then, Brad has worked as department software process engineer spanning five
years at two different large commercial organizations.  Brad has developed
within both extreme programming domains and traditional environments for
commercial and industrial communications, industrial control and military
electronics.  He has also served as an expert in redundancy and robustness
technology.  Brad shares three patents.

Additional Information: For more information on the Tucson SPIN please
visit our web site at http://www.TucsonSPIN.org . To suggest ways we can
improve contact us via e-mail at info@TucsonSPIN.org . The Tucson SPIN
meets the first Thursday of each month.

Please forward this Email invitation to friends or coworkers who may be
interested. People wanting to be added to the distribution list for future
meeting announcements and/or people with possible topics for future Tucson
SPIN meetings may send an email to: AttendMeeting@TucsonSPIN.org .

We welcome and value your attendance and participation. There are no member
dues. Food is available at the meeting for a nominal donation.