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A group of postgraduate students from Wits University and the University of Johannesburg (UJ) have just completed an IT project for The AIDS Consortium.  The students are part of the CoachLab@JCSE programme run by the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE).  Annlizé Marnewick, Project Manager at the JCSE explains “The CoachLab™ programme is a partnership between The Innovation Hub (based in Pretoria), JCSE, Local Industry (Barone Budge and Dominick, Standard Bank of South Africa, Microsoft and Vodacom), UJ and Wits and is aimed at top post-graduate students studying in IT related disciplines. It is aligned with post-graduate programmes at universities and prepares a student for leadership positions in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry.”

 The Skills Corridor, an initiative of SmartXchange and the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE), held a mobile technologies workshop on May 27.  Using the state of the art video conferencing facilities at Dimension Data's Client Experience Centre in Bryanston and a mobile video conferencing unit at their Durban office, together with Cisco's Webex application, delegates in Joburg and Durban were treated to lively presentations on the opportunities arising from the use of convergence and mobile technologies.

Oh no - not another information technology disaster! As lawyers on both sides sharpen their pencils, the future of another major South African IT project hangs in the balance.

Prof Barry Dwolatzky starts a new blog - "The Software Engineer" - with a debate sparked by an article in iWeek on whether the South African Government is failing the local ICT industry.

Barry aims in this blog to provide a specialised platform for the South African software engineering community. In it we will discuss the local software sector – its opportunities and challenges. We will discuss skills and how the broader ICT sector can position itself to create significant numbers of new and sustainable jobs. We will discuss how South Africa can export software products and services.

The JCSE is looking for experts in the Software Archtiecture Industry that can share their views and experience at the Software Archtecture Forum.

Prof. Barry Dwolatzky, Director of the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE) delivered a keynote presentation at the Software Engineering Process Group North America Conference today and wow'ed the audience with a presentation of the vibrant South African ICT industry

The ITWeb/JCSE IT Skills Survey assesses local ICT skills landscape. The Roundtable held to discuss the results concluded that  the recession and the fact that university graduates are emerging into the job market lacking key skills are the major skills issues.

THE LATEST ITWeb/JCSE skills survey has found that ICT skills priorities have changed slightly over the past year. The 2008 survey showed business intelligence/knowledge management (BI/KM) as the top priority for companies; this year, application development was number one and network infrastructure was second.

The writing of source code in software development doesn't always follow proper processes, which often leads to risks and delays that could have been avoided through better planning and process management.

This is the view of Malcolm Rabson, MD of local software architecture developer, Dariel Solutions.

TPI (Test Process Improvement) Next is a Business Driven Test Process Improvement model as described by Sogeti [2009].  Join Peter Sage from Test and Data Services to learn how the model, that is essentially driven by business needs, can be adapted to CMMi by using the CMMi level that is desired to drive the order of improvement.

The lecture explores the commonalities of systems, organizational and buildings architecture. The presentation discusses architectural requirements as well as designing an architecture using architectural patterns, strategies and reference architectures. The lecture looks at architecture across levels of granularity. A core responsibility of an architect is to be able to assess and validate existing architectures. The lecture concludes with ways of assessing an architecture.

HOW GOOD IS YOUR ORGANISATION AT MANAGING ITS PEOPLE

The People Capability Maturity Model®(P-CMM) is a framework that helps organisations improve their workforce management practices. This three-day course introduces those who are involved in managing people to P-CMM Version 2.0, its fundamental concepts, and the value it can bring to organizations using it.

The P-CMM is a framework that organizations can use to attract, motivate, and retain talented staff. The practices in the model help an organization be an employer of choice and ensure that the staff has the competencies and capabilities to achieve the organization's current and future business objectives.

Architecture in an Agile World (or maybe it's the other way around)

There often seems to be a tension that surfaces between the process (that which guides us) and the execution (that which we do).  Agility and architecture also play out in this same way, and it can be a very destructive.  Yet, each side needs the other to exist.  The architecture that you create depends on your attitude, perception and degree of agility.  From the other end, you can reach varying degrees of agility, depending on your attitude, perception and knowledge of the problem and it's architectural solution.  In this session, we will turn this tension into a powerful force that you can use to achieve a balance between keeping the problem and it's solution under control.

TSP – Somewhere between Agile and Plan-driven: Report on a pilot adoption programme in SA

Some Agile practitioners tend to see the world in black and white. In their eyes software development can either be done using an “agile approach” or a “plan driven” approach. In recent years, a grey area in between these extremes has emerged. The “Team Software Process” (TSP) and “Personal Software Process” (PSP) falls within this grey area. While a TSP team follows most of the key agile practices, the role of planning, following a process and, above all, collecting and using measurements is paramount.

SEPG North America" is the Software Engineering Institute (SEI)'s big annual process improvement gathering. In March 2010 it was held in Savannah, Georgia, and was attended by nearly 1,000 process experts and software engineers from around the world. Some of the highlights of the conference were papers on Cloud Computing, CMMI and Agile, CMMI for Services and a "multi-model" approach to process improvement. There was also a forum on the upcoming CMMI version 1.3, due for release later in 2010.  Barry Dwolatzky, Director of the JCSE was one of the few attendees from Africa.  He presented an overview of some of the important papers presented at SEPG 2010.

Download the presentation.

ICSE encompassed a conference programme, technical tutorials and workshops, a programme of demonstrations and an exhibition along with social functions, providing an ideal opportunity to learn and network with like-minded colleagues from around the world.