Course Code: 4_4_Cost of Quality and Value Added Analysis

TOPIC AREA: Software Engineering

PRESENTER: Dr. Dennis J. Frailey is a Senior Fellow at Raytheon Systems Company and an Adjunct Professor at Southern Methodist University. Author of over 50 technical publications, he has worked in the field of software engineering since 1962, with a broad range of experience including real-time operating system development, scientific applications, user interface design, and computer architecture. He has also taught computer science since 1968 and was one of the first faculty members to teach in the software engineering masters program at SMU. Since the late 1980's his specialty has been software project management, with emphasis on software metrics and software process improvement. Dr. Frailey introduced a series of software project management courses at SMU in 1992, based on experience at Texas Instruments and Raytheon. This course is derived from the most recent edition of these courses as well as a highly successful series of short courses taught for the University of Texas Software Quality Institute. Frailey holds an MS and PhD in computer science from Purdue University and a BS in mathematics from the University of Notre Dame. He is currently active in establishing software engineering as a profession, serving on various committees established by the ACM and IEEE-Computer Society and as an advisor to the Texas Board of Professional Engineers on the subject of software engineering.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This is the fourth course in the Software Productivity and Quality Engineering series, part of the Software Project Management Program. The course addresses the relationship between quality and productivity and shows why they are not incompatible. The course begins with a discussion of customer value and value-added analysis - this is a means of identifying the parts of the process that should be focal points for productivity improvement. Cost-of-quality concepts are introduced as a way to measure the costs of quality improvement and the penalties for lack of quality. Return on investment analysis is illustrated as a way to decide when prevention is worthwhile. Software is shown to differ from hardware when evaluating quality costs. It is shown how these techniques are similar and how they often result in the same actions, although their motivations are different.

BENEFITS:

After taking this course, you will understand how to focus productivity improvement efforts effectively, how to evaluate the cost/benefit tradeoffs of proposed quality improvement techniques, and how to justify quality and productivity improvements that appear to add cost to a project.

INTENDED AUDIENCE:

The target audience includes current and prospective software development leads and managers. It will also be of interest to system engineers, software process specialists, managers of disciplines related to software engineering (such as software configuration management), and program managers whose programs have a significant software component.

PREREQUISITES:

Basic college level mathematics.

SCHEDULE: The course will be broadcast on 7/21/2000: