• 6:00 - 7:00 Networking
• 7:00 - 7:15 Welcome, Introductions, SPIN Business
• 7:15 - 8:15 Presentation
• 8:15 - 8:25 Job Openings / Announcements
• 8:25 - 8:30 Book give away

Abstract:  When an organization decides to newly embark on process improvement (PI), there are several issues that influence the amount of effort involved and the effective timeline to achieve a particular PI goal. Lessons gleaned from the software development world in the use of incremental or iterative approaches can be applied to any type of project to achieve similar results, including process improvement. With proper planning the end goal can be reached in a greatly accelerated fashion. Effective planning is not the only element, however, that should be considered when reducing duration or budget. This presentation examines the approach taken at a particular IT company on a PI effort that not only met its goals but exceeded the expectations of all involved.

Bio: Nelson Perez is President and Principal Consultant of Sierra’s Edge, Inc. (an SEI Transition Partner) and was the architect and author of all the policies and process assets associated with this presentation. Perez has been recently named the QA and Business Improvement Manager at Western Services Corporation, a company that creates high fidelity models and simulations of fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. Perez has over 20 years of work experience and has worked the entire life cycle and held numerous management and engineering positions on such high visibility programs as the B2 Stealth Bomber; NASA Space Shuttle; and Homeland Defense. He has worked as a software engineering in several domains including IT, avionics, modeling and simulation, automated manufacturing, non-destructive test, electronic warfare, and large scale security systems. He has co-authored 1 NASA-related patent and his first process improvement effort helped garner the US Air Force/TRW (now part of Northrop Grumman) SOF EISE program the USAF 21st Century Partnership Team Quality Award. He is a candidate SCAMPI Lead Appraiser and has been awarded a contract to lead a local client’s CMMI ML2 appraisal for the CMMI-DEV model under a Services interpretation. His specialty is project failure turn around, project management, and process improvement. His research interests include process efficiency; effectiveness; and the application of Agile processes to safety-critical applications. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Stevens Institute of Technology.