Software Disasters - Understanding the Past to Improve the Future
Retrospect
At the 3rd of July a lot of participants took the chance to learn more about avoiding software disasters. Guest speaker was Prof. Patrica McQuaid.
She has over 25 years of experience in software engineering, has worked in industry in the banking and manufacturing industries, is an educator, consultant, and trainer. She is a Professor of Information Systems at California Polytechnic State University, USA. She has taught in both the Colleges of Business and Engineering throughout her career. Her research interests include software testing, software quality, software project management, software security, and software process improvement.
Patricia is the co-founder and immediate Past-President of the American Software Testing Qualifications Board (ASTQB). On the international Software Testing Qualifications Board level (ISTQB), she is a member of the Audit committee and was the Vice-Chair of Marketing. She is a member of IEEE, and a Senior Member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ). She is an Associate Editor for the Software Quality Professional journal, and is a member of ASQ’s Software Division Council. Patricia is a frequent speaker and author, both internationally and nationally. She is the Program Chair for the Americas for the World Congress for Software Quality (WCSQ).
Software Disasters - Understanding the Past to Improve the Future
Over the years, there have been several major software disasters, resulting from poor software project management, poor risk assessment, and poor development and testing practices. The results of the disasters range from project delays, project cancellations, loss of millions of dollars of equipment, to human fatalities. It is important to study software disasters, to alert developers and testers to be ever vigilant, and to understand that huge catastrophes can arise from what seem like small problems. The focus of the talk is on the factors that led to these problems, an analysis of the problems, and then the lessons to be learned that relate to software engineering, safety engineering, government and corporate regulations, and oversight by users of the systems. It is by understanding the past, that we can improve the future.
fltr: Mag. Rudolf Ramler, Dr. Wolfgang Beer, Dr. Miklos Biro, Prof. Patrica McQuaid Ph.D.,
Prof. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Schewe, Dr. Bernhard Peischl, Dr. Klaus Pirklbauer
Other speakers were:
• Mag. Rudolf Ramler: Keys to Software Testing: Looking not only under the lamp post
• Dr. Bernhard Peischl: Models in Software Quality Assurance: Testing and Debugging
• Prof. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Schewe: Exploration of System Specifications and Test Refinement