Swiss Requirements Day 2012 – Save CHF 60.- with our discount code

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Philipp Kronenberg

After the great success last year with more than 500 participants, the third Swiss Requirements Day will take place on 20 June 2012 at the Kongresshaus in Zurich.

The Swiss Requirements Day is a neutral and non-commercial conference about Requirements and their importance for the entire IT industry. It is not only for Requirements Manager, but rather brings all those together who are connected with the subject of Requirements (e.g. Requirements Professionals, Product Manager, Software Manager, Quality Manager, Business Analysts).

Don’t miss the speech «Behaviour-Driven Development – the Missing Link between Requirements, Development and Testing» from Dr. Alan Ettlin, Senior Project Leader and Agile Coach with bbv Software Services AG. Great key notes and plenty of presentations with the latest information complete the day.

We are Gold Partners at this event which means that you can benefit from our CHF 60,- discount code. When registering please enter the promo code (Promo_bbv) the code is valid until 31 May 2012.

The registration and further information can be found under: www.swissrequirementsday.ch

We look forward to welcoming you at Swiss Requirements Day 2012.

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Embedded-Technologien – Trends und Networking an der ECC 12

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Philipp Kronenberg

Am 5. Juni 2012 findet die fünfte Embedded Computing Conference statt, die sich als wichtigster Anlass in
der Schweiz zum Thema etabliert. Das Magazin Polyscope sprach mit Roland Achermann, Leiter des Bereichs Embedded-Systeme bei bbv Software Services AG, und Daniel Brüngger. Die beiden sind im Vorstand der Sektion 19 des swissT.net, welche die Embedded Computing Conference veranstaltet. Zum Interview …

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New Booklet available: «Agile Requirements Engineering»

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Philipp Kronenberg

Raphael Auf der Maur widmet sich in unserem neusten Booklet dem Aspekt der Anforderungserhebung und wie diese in Scrum organisiert werden kann. Dabei geht er auch auf einige Best Practices aus dem klassischen Requirements Engineering ein und darauf, wie diese erfolgreich in einem agilen Projekt eingesetzt werden können, ohne dabei in den Sog schwergewichtiger Prozesse zu gelangen.

Get your free copy now!

Passend zum Booklet haben wir das Poster Agile Requirements Engineering aufgelegt. Jetzt gratis bestellen!

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Alte Software auf Vordermann bringen

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Philipp Kronenberg

Der Artikel Alte Software auf Vordermann bringen von Michel Estermann, Senior Software-Ingenieur im Embedded-Bereich bei bbv Software Services AG, ist im aktuellen im aktuellen Megalink erschienen.

Michel Estermann zeigt in diesem Artikel auf, dass es sich trotz grossem Initialaufwand auch für Brownfield-Projekte lohnt, den Schritt in Richtung «Quality Driven Development» zu wagen und den Fokus vermehrt auf Unit-Testing, Refactoring und kurze Entwicklungszyklen mit schnellem Qualitätsfeedback zu richten. Der Gewinn ist eine während des ganzen Software-Lifecycles aktuelle, verständliche und testbare Software hoher Qualität, der man vertraut und die man mit geringem Risiko anpassen und erweitern kann.

Lesen Sie auch das ausführliche Booklet zum gleichen Thema:
Estermann, M. (2011), bbv-Booklet. Quality-Driven Development in Brownfield-Projekten: www.bbv.ch/booklets

Posted in Agile, Embedded, Scrum, Test Driven Development, Testing | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

C++ Memory error detection on a Linux platform

Posted on April 18, 2012 by remymahler

Memory errors are among the most difficult bugs to detect because they don’t seem to cause any outward problems until it is too late. A memory leak can cause an out of memory issue, and further calls to malloc or new suddenly fail. A double-free will result in heap corruption and a buffer overflow can, at best, lead to a segmentation fault. In fact, when working with a language that doesn’t have garbage collection, such as C or C++, almost half your time might be spent ensuring that you correctly manage memory. So, one important aspect of system programming in C/C++ is to handle memory related issues effectively.
The more you work close to a system, the more memory related issues you need to face. Sometimes these issues may be very trivial, while many times they may become a nightmare to debug them. One tool that can help you detect memory related issues is Valgrind. Continue reading →

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Fun at the Workplace

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Marcel Baumann

It is winter in Switzerland and we have a lot of time for talking because it is so cold outside. Quite a few of the discussions are about job opportunities and how interesting and motivating the current activities are. I selected two articles to help everybody to decide if his software development job is worth the effort. Just go through the questions and ask yourself if the current project provides the current settings.

  • The Joel Test is slightly outdated. Keep his questions and just do the following changes
  • Can you replace CVS with Git to reflect the current state of the industry?
  • Move from daily builds to build at checkin. Remember “Daily Builds are for Wimps”
  • Do not only fix bugs but also write the associated automated tests. Remember “Defect Driven Development” to guaranty your customer he will never again see the same issue
  • Check that your specification also has acceptance criteria which can be automated
  • For Microsoft developers, are you forced to use TFS instead of tools of your choice and why?
  • Are you testers integrated in your Scrum team and sitting in the same room?
  • Do new candidates code and perform refactoring to achieve clean code during their interview?
  • 8 Questions to identify a lame programming job. The questions are up to date. His final remark is worth remembering
    • No matter how great the potential projects and teammates might be, I don’t think you can do truly meaningful work in an environment where you, the developer, aren’t empowered to succeed.  If a company doesn’t get that, then they don’t get software.

    Take the ten minutes to decide if your current job is good enough. Otherwise if you living in Switzerland contact me :-)

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    What you do NOT need to do in Scrum

    Posted on April 11, 2012 by Marcel Baumann

    I often hear discussion who is doing the “traditional” project leader tasks in Scrum. Meaning who is the guy doing the project leader job in a Scrum environment? This is in general an excuse to state that Scrum alone cannot work. Below a list of tasks you do NOT need anymore to do in Scrum (see also blog of Jeff Sutherland).

    • Make commitments on behalf of the team about how much they can get done by a certain date
    • Coerce the team that the commitments made on their behalf are attainable
    • Give direction to the team on how to implement the work
    • Monitor the team’s progress to make sure they stay on schedule
    • Step in and determine the solution
    • Conduct weekly status update and face to face meetings with the team to surface issues and provide direction
    • Provide motivation and push the team to wrok harder than they might want to using carrots and sticks
    • Decide task assignments among the team members and follow up on tasks to verify completion
    • Be responsible for the team doing the right thing at the right time in the right way
    • Update Gantt charts for the iteration and release planning
    • Finding out that requirements mean to explain team members what they should implement
    • Review the documents and code to guaranty quality
    • Explain upper management why the project is late and why you need additional resources
    • Explain upper management why you cannot transfer a team member to another project
    • Attend weekly progress and escalation meeting to explain in details the status of your project
    • Define the priority of the next activities
    Now you have to perform important tasks
    • Help removing impediments to increase velocity of team
    • Coach team to implement Scrum and reflect on their activities. Plan-Do-Check-Act is built into Scrum with retrospectives and sprint reviews.
    • Coach product owner to deliver a groomed backlog
    • Inform and support all project’s stakeholders
    If you reflect on these two lists it becomes obvious that the first list describes malfunctions and the second one describes mechanisms to improve.
    Jeff Sutherland gives some interesting insights about the Scrum master
    • The Scrum master enforces Scrum practices “Coaching rather than command and control”
    • Usually part of the team
    • The Scrum master pensum is
    • Few problems: for a small team 10%, for a large team 50%
    • Many problems: for a small team 50%, for a large team 100%
    Personally I am still experiencing with Scrum master part of the team, or Scrum master working for multiple teams. Experience has shown us that both approaches have their advantages.
    Enjoy the real work in your Scrum projects. To check if you are really doing Scrum take the Nokia/Cytrix test (see also Jeff Blog).
    Posted in Agile, Scrum | Leave a comment

    bbv supports .NET USER GROUP ZENTRALSCHWEIZ

    Posted on April 2, 2012 by Philipp Kronenberg

    Wir unterstützen auch 2012 die von den beiden engagierten bbv-Mitarbeitenden Urs Enzler und Daniel Marbach in ihrer Freizeit ins Leben gerufene .NET USER GROUP ZENTRALSCHWEIZ. Die Idee, eine Netzwerk-Plattform für .NET-Experten mit hochstehenden Vorträgen zu bieten, überzeugt uns.

    Neben Bier und Chips unterstützen wird die .NET USER GROUP ZENTRALSCHWEIZ finanziell und ermöglichen, die regelmässigen Treffen am Hauptsitz der bbv in Luzern abzuhalten.

    Eindrücke vom März-Event.

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    OBJEKTspektrum Information Day Zurich supported by bbv

    Posted on April 2, 2012 by Philipp Kronenberg

    Unter dem Motto «Agilität als Strategie» findet am 4. Mai der OBJEKTspektrum Information Day im Hilton Hotel, Zürich Airport, statt. Die bbv Software Services AG unterstützt den Information Day in Zürich als Gold-Partner.

    Die Information Days sind eine Serie von drei Eintageskonferenzen, die SIGS DATACOM mit wechselnden Themen an verschiedenen Orten veranstaltet. Die Konferenzen richten sich an Projektleiter, Entscheidungsträger, IT-Management und Technologiestrategen.

    Details und Link zur Anmeldung

    Posted in Agile, Announcement, Events, Requirement, Scrum | Leave a comment

    Open Source projects and Medical Technical Projects

    Posted on March 28, 2012 by Urs Enzler

    These are the slides with comments of my conference talk at MedConf 2012 in Lucerne:

    Software development without using open source software (OSS) is unthinkable in today’s world. This holds also for medical technical projects.

    Agenda_thumb2

    This presentation is split into three parts. First we take a look at some myths and facts about open source software. Then at how to integrate an OSS into your project so it can be validated against regulatory requirements. And finally, we’ll see what is important when selecting open source software.

    Continue reading →

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