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Abstract:
Buying software instead of building it from scratch looks like a sweet proposition:
the costs should be lower, the quality higher, the learning curve shorter and finding the people who
can work with it easier. With Software-as-a-Service solution, even the costs of server maintenance and
updates go away. In the recent years, the reliance on “buy” rather than “build” option has been evident
across the board, and specifically in the areas of ERP, CRM, Lab Information Management Systems,
shipping, billing and corporate Intranet.
However, the reality is seldom as rosy as the promise: generic software often falls short of answering
the unique yet crucial needs of the enterprise, implementation takes much longer than expected, training
is a mess and performance is not exactly what was expected.
Traditional Quality Assurance and Testing approaches, honed through innumerable software development
projects, are often a poor match for software implementation challenges. The focus, the timing, and the
methods – all these need to be changed in order to accommodate the implementation rather than the
development mode.
Implementation Assurance is a methodology developed by Conflair to increase the quality of software
implementation projects. While preserving the goals and the basic principles of software quality
assurance, it rearranges the order and changes the focus of the verification and validation activities
throughout the project life cycle, and even challenges some axioms about the order of the life cycle stages.
The presentation will explore the basic challenges of software implementation, the underlying
principles of Implementation Assurance and its specific aspects:
- Requirements gathering
- Selecting the solution
- Project planning
- Negotiating changes
- Tracking progress
- Process quality assurance
- Testing and test automation
- The (perceived) uniqueness of SaaS
The presentation will be based on the examples from the Implementation Assurance practice and will
drive upon the lessons learned from software implementation projects.
Bio:
Michael Yudanin's area of expertise is software processes assurance. Translated into practice, it means
creating life cycle models that fit organizations' needs and constraints, establishing verification and
validation activities throughout the software life cycle, off-shoring process and product assurance, logo
certification testing, test automation, organizing and managing testing efforts for new development and
implementation, designing software processes to fit CMMI® and ISO requirements, as well as other
applications of quality in information technology.
Michael is a founder of Conflair - an IT Solutioning Company. IT Solutioning is an operational
philosophy that emphasizes development and implementation of custom client-centric solutions rather
than provision of a number of well-defined services certain company knows how to do well. Throughout
his career Michael worked with a large number of companies, among them: Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, United Parcel Service, Sage Accounting, Ceridian, Comverse, Georgia Department of
Transportation, Tennessee Valley Authority. Michael Yudanin is a Certified Software Quality Engineer by
the American Society for Quality since 1999.
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