Tutorials -- Half Day/Wednesday PM

Object-oriented thinking is just the latest of many technologies promising to improve software development. We hear claims such as increased productivity, higher quality, extendibility, reuse and portability. Whether these claims remain as dreams or are actually realized is dependent on the manager's ability to guide their organization to new effective uses of this technology. The pressure to participate in the internet and use the new UML standard only adds to the importance of the manager's role.

This tutorial discusses what managers should expect and need to do as their organization grows in its maturity to use objects. It is a course loaded with wisdom and experience.

In this tutorial, you learn how to develop a management program that allows you to introduce this new technology. It explores the appropriate deployment of the technology as well as the management issues - people-oriented as well as project-oriented - that must be attended to. The tutorial takes the view that the transition is a long-term project and discusses a manager's role over a many year period. It pays special attention to the process by which people work through a paradigm shift.

Norm Kerth is a consultant working with companies interested in ensuring that they make a successful transition to using the object-technologies. He includes the wider issues of specification and design activities, quality assurance, continuous process improvement, project management and building effective teams. Prior to starting his company, Elite Systems, he was a professor and researcher at the University of Portland. He has a decade of engineering experience with Tektronix and is a master teacher, with over 25 years of experience in front of students and computer professionals.