International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE)
San Francisco Bay Area Chapter

November 10, 1998 Tuesday Evening Monthly Program

"A Risk Reducing Approach 
  to Evolving Improved Product Development Capabilities"

Presenter: 
 Kenneth W. Kolence (Kolence Associates)
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Abstract
~~~~~~~~
The last decade or so has seen a number of official and "de facto"
standards on design and implementation processes arise and become
considered as corporate badges of quality and capability.  Mostly, the
standards being referred to are very high level process descriptions
or abstractions that can be satisfied by many different types or
classes of processes, with numerous implementation variations possible
within each such class.  As a result, the implementation and use of
these standards requires that classes of different functional
processes be selected, tailored, integrated, and then implemented and
operated as a coherent system.  In other words, the task of
implementing standards expressed at such levels of abstraction
essentially requires a classical Systems Engineering approach.

This presentation will describe a proposed approach to using available
system metamodels to design, implement, and manage high capability
organizations responsible for developing integrated hardware and
software systems.

This talk will describe:
o  How to develop a set of interacting requirements on the subsystems
   of a product development process capability metamodel (such as a
   process maturity model and its key process areas or KPA's).
o How these subsystems requirements are used to select a "conjoint
   process set."
o How this information can be used to develop plans and schedules for
  implemention.

This general approach has significant risk reduction capabilities
obtained through the addition of risk-reducing criteria to the
requirements that select the conjoint process set for the system, plus
application of this criteria during planning.

Presenter's Background
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ken Kolence is an independent consultant dba Kolence Associates, with
an office in Palo Alto.  He has a B.S. in physics, and an M.S. in
mathematics from the University of Illinois.  In the late 60's he
founded the first software product house in Silicon Valley (Boole &
Babbage), to produce measurement software products for IBM mainframes.
He also was invited to attend the NATO-sponsored conference that
founded the field of software engineering, for earlier work on
managing large software development projects.  Later, he founded the
Institute for Software Engineering, Inc (not SEI), which provided
research into various aspects of Software Engineering to its members,
along with courses on performance engineering and computer capacity
management.  Most recently, he has been deeply involved in software
project management metrics.  He is a member of the ACM, IEEE, ASQ, and
the Computer Measurement Group (CMG), and is an active member in the
SV SPIN.

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Tues, Nov. 10: 5:30 PM Social Half-Hour (hors d'oeuvres)
               6:00-7:00 Talk followed by questions.
               Networking and sidebars to 8 PM.  
Place:         GTE Government Systems, Mountain View, Bldg 7 Auditorium.
               100 Ferguson Drive  (Central Expressway and Highway 237)
               Access to GTE is from Central Expressway or Hwy 237 using
               Ferguson Drive (road parallels 237).
               {ASCII map below.}
Donation:      FREE for members; $4 for non-members
Reservations:  Contact Lew Lee, TRW S&ITG Sunnyvale
               408-743-6474, lew.lee@trw.com

           NOTE - Please Pre-Register to Facilitate Check-In

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          *       To properly view this announcement,       *
          *  use a small monospace font such as courier 10  *
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Nov. 14  Tutorial:  "The Fundamentals of Engineering Complex
           Systems" with Dr. Brian W. Mar and Mr. Bernard G. Morais.
           Announcement is on the web or send email.
Dec. 8 Monthly Meeting.  Program to be announced.

Our programs are posted at URL=http://www.relay.net/~lew/sfbac.html
The INCOSE website is at http://www.incose.org

                               + + + + +
The mission of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), 
a non-profit professional society, is to "foster the definition, and
practice of World Class Systems Engineering in industry, academia, and
government."  The SF Bay Area Chapter presents thought-provoking monthly
programs for its members and their guests.  Learn about the INCOSE at
www.incose.org.

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ASCII Map (send fax number to Lew Lee for a graphical map)

 (Use Courier 10 or a small monospace font to view map)
   ** Driveway entrances on Ferguson shown as "<=" **

                                     to Hwy 101  
    |                                   ||
    |                                  /||\
    |                                 / || |
    |                Maude            | || |
 ---+---------------------------------+-++-+------
    |                                 | || |
    |                                 | || |
    |              Middlefield        | || |
 ---+-------------------------------+-+-++-+------
    |                               |  \|| |
  W |                                \  ||/
  h |                               F | ||
  i |                               e | || H   +--
  s |                               r | || w   |\
  m |                               g | || y     \
  a |                               u | ||        \
  n |                               s | || 2     North
    |                               o | || 3        \
    |                               n | || 7         \
    |         Parking                 | ||
    |                                 | ||
    |     +-----+ walk  +-----+     <=| ||    
    |     |Bldg |   :   |Bldg |       | ||
    |     | 7 *-+   :   | 6   |       | ||    
    |     +---+   <.:   +-----+     <=| ||     
    |       Lobby                   <=| ||    
    |                                 | ||    
    |                                 | ||    
  __|                     Ferguson -->| ||
 /  |                                 | ||
 |  |                                 | ||
 |  |        (construction area)      | ||
 |  |                                 | ||
 |  |                                 | ||
=+====================================+=||========
             Central Expressway         ||
                                        ||
                                    to Mt. View

INCOSE visitors enter through the lobby of Building 7. Please park
in the lot north of the building and walk between Bldg 6 and 7
to the front of 7.  Additional parking is available on the
Central Express side of Bldg 6.  Visitor sign-in is in the lobby.

Handicapped Access Parking close to the lobby is available in the lot
in front of Bldg 7.  Contact Lew Lee for more access information.

Suggested Driving Directions:

East on Central Expressway -- exit at Ferguson.

West on Central Expressway -- exit at Ferguson.

West on Hwy 237 (going towards Mtn. View) -- take Middlefield exit.
Right at Middlefield then a quick left onto Ferguson.

East on Hwy 237 (going towards Milpitas) - take Middlefield exit.
Left at Middlefield, cross under 237 then a left onto Ferguson
(2nd traffic light past 237).

South on Hwy 101 -- take Hwy 85 to Central Expressway.  Make a left
(east) onto Central then left at Ferguson.

North on Hwy 101 -- take Hwy 237 West (Mtn. View - Alviso Hwy) exit.
Take Middlefield exit, right at Middlefield, then a quick left onto 
Ferguson.

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