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JCSE hosted a successful 2010 Annual Symposium on Process Improvement at the Sunnyside Park Hotel.  Click here for more information and copies of presentations.

September 30, 2010—Attendees from 15 U.S. states and 10 countries around the world visited Pittsburgh, the headquarters city for the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute, for the TSP Symposium 2010. Themed Changing the World of Software Engineering, the fifth annual Symposium provided seasoned users of the Team Software Process (TSP), those involved in its development and transition, and those who are new to TSP with four days of enriching tutorials, plentiful networking opportunities, and engaging presentations.

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.

Custom Domain-Specific Language's (DSL) have been around for a long time, and over recent years they have become increasingly popular. The speakers explored how DSL's can be used within your environment to improve the quality of the systems engineering efforts. 

The past several years has seen the emergence of several next-generation software development frameworks, such as Scrum and XP. These frameworks are focussed on improving delivery, increasing agility, and creating sustainability in software development. For decades, the use of Kanban has enabled Toyota's Lean, Just-In-Time processes, which are world-renowned. This technology has been adapted for use in software development, as well as other domains. The presentation covered the Kanban philosophy, what Kanban is, how it differs to other major frameworks for development, and how it can help your organisation.

Object Oriented Design

OO is the first development technology that really has the potential to deliver against business needs, i.e., to produce systems that are flexible, robust, reliable, reusable and extendable. However, the reality is that many Dev shops are not achieving the level of delivery that the literature suggests they should. More importantly they are not delivering against the needs of their businesses.

Demystifying the hype around NoSQL

Test driven development with practical refactoring tips

The Assurance over the quality of IT projects

Information Systems have moved from being merely used as enablers to being an integral part of the corporate strategy to support, sustain and grow the business. 

As in 2010, the Architecture Forum started 2011 with an open discussion where industry professionals  contributed and learnt using the open-spaces approach. 

On the 25th of November forum participants were given the opportunity to share their approach to software architecture in their respective environments. The idea was for interested participants to do a 10 minute long slide- or whiteboard-driven overview of the process followed or techniques applied in their respective environments. This was a great opportunity to get input from other industry professionals on their approach or simply to learn from your peers' thinking about 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.

The theme of this annual Symposium is "Process Improvement as a driver in creating software development jobs in South Africa".

Three Gauteng-based entrepreneurs – Mikkel, David and Jarrod – have piloted two “Startup Sessions” over the past few months. The concept is a fantastic one and we at the JCSE are keen to support this initiative by providing a venue and some logistical support. We held our first “Startup Session” on the 2nd and 3rd October at Wits University.  

Let’s face it: architects are high-end knowledge workers who often advance organisational understanding through detailed problem analysis and design. Yet for all of our processes, artefacts, patterns and knowledge repositories architecture is often more about our ability to empower others to shine, and use their personal creativity.

Information technology and cognitive psychology are siblings; both have their origins in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and both influence each other. In this session, we used this knowledge to shed light on the personality styles and career challenges of the architect, by reflecting upon ourselves.

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