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Published by the Southern California Quality Assurance Association, San Fernando, a QAI federated Chapter. SCQAA-SF chapter sponsors the sharing of information to promote and encourage the improvement in information technology quality practices and principles through networking, training and professional development.. SCQAA enables members to share quality practices, principles, concepts, ideas, and methods through meetings, seminars, workshops, reinforces IT quality concepts and practices through networking and membership, and sponsors IT quality concepts and practices throughout Southern California. Join us and help lead the way to better quality software. Visit our web site: WWW.SCQAA.US. NOTE: "Quality In Blue" e-mails are never sent unsolicited. SCQAA-SF only sends e-mails to registered members. If you would like to unsubscribe follow the subscription information instructions at the end of this newsletter. Fee: $10 nonmembers; Free for members. Membership: $65/year standard (one year of meetings); $100/year (one year of meetings + training discount) Questions? Contact scqaasf_newsletter@sbcglobal.net

Project Retrospectives: Improving Team, Organizational and Project Management Performance and Learning

John Suzuki

Wednesday, April 6, 2005 at Countrywide, 2900 Madera, Simi Valley, CA 93065

Networking Dinner @ 5:45; Bootcamp @ 6:15; Business @ 6:45; Program @ 7:00 PM

To build effective and positive learning teams and organizations, self-reflection and improvement must be an integral part of a company’s culture. An efficient way of insuring this type of culture exists is to reflect at regular intervals on how to be more effective and then make the corresponding adjustment to its behavior to steer the team or organization in a better direction. One way to reflect is to hold project retrospectives. This presentation will introduce the audience to the process and structure of project retrospectives and will explain the differences between retrospectives and post mortems. Techniques for facilitating retrospectives will also be presented that will allow teams and organizations to discover what they are doing well and what they are not doing as well so that they can determine how to improve in the future. The audience will also hear the speaker’s experiences leading project retrospectives for various kinds of projects and will have the opportunity to participate in an abbreviated retrospective simulation.

John Suzuki is the founder and principal consultant of JKS & Associates. With over 20 years of professional experience, he currently provides consulting and facilitation in a wide range of software disciplines including software project retrospectives. He also helps software organizations staff new teams and departments, facilitates team learning, growth and improved productivity through experiential-based team building simulations, provides Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessments for software organizations, and provides mentoring and coaching of development and project management personnel.

John is a member of the International Council On Systems Engineering (ICOSE), ACM, IEEE, ASQ, SOLE, IPSE, AAMI, RAPS, SRE, Gerald Weinberg’s SHAPE forum, and the Southern California SPIN. He has presented at several national symposiums, participated on several conference panels, is the author of 16 papers, a contributor to 2 books and holds 3 patents. For the past 3 years, John has served as a paper submission and abstract reviewer for the Software Quality Professional Journal. He is a Certified Software Quality Engineer (CSQE) and Certified Quality Auditor (CQA) through the American Society of Quality, a certified Software Test Engineer (CSTE) through the Quality Assurance Institute and trained by the SEI to perform Software Capability Evaluations (SCE’s). He is also qualified to administer the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) instrument through CPP, Inc. John completed his undergraduate studies at the University of California, San Diego and has attended graduate school at Johns Hopkins University.

“Peer Reviews,” Pre-Meeting Bootcamp! This informative half hour training session with Bill Hackenberg of Countrywide, is an added bonus based on real life experience. Come a half hour early at 6:15 to learn and enjoy!

Software Testing for Project Managers

QAInsight is offering this highly anticipated software testing course for ONLY $199!

Register Online now! www.qainsight.com/cgi-bin/class.cgi

Making sure you have adequate testing planned for your projects can be very challenging if you are a Project Manager who is under a lot of pressure to meet deadlines with limited resources. Companies tend to cut back on QA teams, add more responsibilities to the overworked Project Manager and hold Project Managers more accountable for the outcomes. For the first time, we are offering a software testing course designed specifically for Project Managers. This course provides a working knowledge of the key elements required for Project Managers to plan, measure, and monitor progress of their project specific test program tasks. It provides a review of the various types of software testing, giving the Project Managers an in-depth understanding of how to evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of various types and levels of testing that need to be performed for each phase of the software development cycle.

Course Fee

$199 (10% discount to PMI, AITP and SCQAA members. SCQAA SF full members receive a 30% discount). Members will receive their membership discounts on the day of the class. Proof of membership is required.

Date and Location
Thursday May 5, 2005; 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. University of Phoenix, 5955 De Soto Ave, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
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Instructor

Robert T. Bauer has over 15 years of experience working in research labs and in application development. He also has 20 years of teaching experience and has been adjunct and associate professor at Chapman College, National University, Portland State University and the Oregon Graduate Institute. He has taught a variety of graduate and undergraduate classes. He has been designated as a Master Training Specialist by formal board action of the Chief of Naval Training. (This designation is earned by less than 0.5% of all military instructors). Robert is a well-known lecturer who has given many talks on a wide variety of quality assurance and testing topics.

Who should attend?

Project managers, especially those who need to play a more active role in testing and quality assurance to fill the resource gaps in their projects.

What will you learn?

Ø Develop a comprehensive work breakdown structure (WBS) for test program tasks.

Ø Determine an appropriate test management process specific to your project needs.

Ø Understand and develop project-specific key test progress and defect metrics.

Ø Determine the readiness of the release using software testing and quality metrics.

Ø Review and evaluate the effectiveness and the efficiency of the testing performed in your project.

Ø Identify warning signs of poor quality software testing activities and quickly alleviate test-related problems.

For more information, please send email to training@qainsight.com or call QAInsight at (661) 295-4684. You can register online www.qainsight.com/cgi-bin/class.cgi

Coming soon on Thursday, June 2, 2005

Software Testing for

Test Managers

For more information, please send email training@qainsight.com or contact Karina Gamble 661-799-9279

SCQAA-SF Meetings – Door Prizes

Come to the April meeting for a chance to win a free pass to the PSQT West 2005 conference in Las Vegas May 2 – 6, 2005

Click here for PSQT Conference information

Just by attending our great meetings, you are eligible to win the raffle for some really GREAT door prizes. During our meetings in 2004 we gave away a variety of great door gifts, including a Visioneer 7100 USB flatbed 48 bit color scanner with powerful document software, a Canon LiDE 30 USB flatbed 48 bit color scanner with powerful document software and various other software packages and books. We are also able to provide entrance tickets to professional conventions and other events from time to time. Be sure to attend so you can have an opportunity to win one of these useful and interesting door prizes!

Whether you come for our enlightening speaker, come for the announcements, come for the food, or come for a chance at the door prize, come to our next meeting and learn even more about software quality assurance!

MARK YOUR CALENDAR! Wednesday, May 4, 2005 Monthly Meeting in Countrywide, Simi Valley, CA Speaker: Robert T Bauer Topic: Future of Software Testing Wednesday, June 1, 2005 Monthly Meeting in Countrywide, Simi Valley, CA Speaker: E. Theis Topic: Scripting and Programming for Testers, What You Need to Know for Test Automation

Quality Meetings Upcoming

April 8 All Day HIMSS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Long Beach California (Program). Presenters include:

Dr. John Mattison, M.D., Assistant Medical Director of Clinical Systems, Kaiser Permanente, Larry Stofko, Vice President for IT Strategy & Innovation, St Joseph Health System. C.R. Burke, Chief Administrative Officer, St Joseph Heritage Health System - North Division, Joe Marion , Executive Director, ACS Healthcare Solutions. http://www.himss-socal.org/new/new.html

April 10-13, 2005. ISACA – LA 2005 Spring Conference: IT Governance, Control, Security and Assessment. Early Registration Deadline- March 14th http://isacala.org/

April 24, 2005 6 – 9 PM Leadership’s Ten Fatal Flaws, by Ronald Hagler, Ed.D, Professor of Business, California Lutheran University. Sponsored by PMI Los Padres Chapter. Location: Palm Garden Hotel, Thousand Oaks. http://pmi-lospadres.org/index.phtml

April 10 – 16, 2005. National Health Information Privacy & Security Week. Join in on the celebration. For more information, click on Health Information Privacy and Security Week.

April 14 Dinner meeting Successful Project Management in Entertainment Industry. Presented by:Mike Vovk, Vice President, Warner Brothers. Sponsored by PMI Los Angeles at the Proud Bird Restaurant in Los Angeles. http://www.pmi-la.org/

April 19, 2005 "What Hackers Know That You Don't" by Jim Kelton at Volt Café, Volt Information Sciences

2401 N Glassell St. Orange, CA 92865 Sponsored by SCQAA – Orange County. http://www.scqaa.com/

April 19th Achieving Business-IT Alignment through Enterprise Architecture -- A close-up look at Alignment, Best Practices. Sponsored by AITP-LA. At LAX Plaza Airport Hotel (Ramada Inn), Culver City. http://www.aitp-la.org/

April 19, 2005 6:30 – 9 PM Taming the Beast: Best Practices in Tech Comm Project Management by Jack Molisani of ProSpring. Sponsored by Society for Technical Communication, San Fernando Valley. At Radisson Hotel in Chatsworth. http://www.stcsfv.org/meetings.htm

April 21, 2005 "Why Outsourcing Deals Fail and How to Mitigate the Risk" by Jeff Kohan , Information Technology Partner, Tatum Partners. Location: American Honda in Torrange, CA. http://scqaa.org/

April 28, 2005 The Mars Exploration Rover Project

Presented by Dr. John L. Callas – Deputy Project Manager. Sponsored by PMI-LA and SCQAA-LA, and graciously hosted by Mt. Sierra College. Mars Rover Project Wins PMI-LA Project of the Year Award for 2004! For more information: Jim Stoumpos at (323) 259-4011 or at Qualityone@usa.net, Michelle Saykally at (909) 437-4215 or at msaykally@conxinc.com

April 28, 2005 6 PM "Leadership's 10 Fatal Flaws". Presented by: Dr. Ronald E. Hag. Sponsored by PMI Los Padres Chapter in Thousand Oaks. http://pmi-lospadres.org/index.phtml

May 2-6, 2005 International Conference on Practical Software Quality and Testing – West Coast. In Las Vegas, NV. Register by 02/28/05 to save 30%; Register by March 31 to save 20%; Register by April 30 to save 10%. Dozens of tracks & training. http://www.psqtconference.com/2005west/

May 17, 2005 6:30 – 9 PM. TBD, by Judy Barbuto, President of Instructional Design Associates, Inc. Sponsored by Society for Technical Communication, San Fernando Valley. At Radisson Hotel in Chatsworth. http://www.stcsfv.org/meetings.htm

May 19-20, 2005 "Performance Measurements & Performance Auditing" conference presented by IIA – San Fernando Valley Chapter. http://www.iia-sfv.org/broch_performance_may_19-20.pdf

May 26, 2005 6 – 9 PM Establishing Project Management and Quality Management Culture in a Corporate Environment, by Bill Hackenberg, 1^st VP, Enterprise Technologies, Countrywide Financial Corporation. Sponsored by PMI Los Padres Chapter. Location: Palm Garden Hotel, Thousand Oaks. http://pmi-lospadres.org/index.phtml

June 23, 2005 6 – 9 PM Internet Law Briefing for Project Managers, by San Fernando Valley Bar Association. Sponsored by PMI Los Padres Chapter. Location: Palm Garden Hotel, Thousand Oaks. http://pmi-lospadres.org/index.phtml

Job Opportunities

Lead Software Quality Analyst in Arcadia. Responsible for software quality control, documentation and testing functions. Responsible for user satisfaction by delivering technical support and training end users. Develop and manage projects for Quality Control. Develop and enforce standardization for Quality Control. Evaluate and ensure product functionality from a Quality Control perspective. Participate in the Software Development Life Cycle from the early stages, working with Business Analysts and End-Users, through the final stages, working with Technical Writers. Larry Singer, WeStaffIT, Inc. 818.762.0800 (p)818.762.0802 (f)larry@westaffit.com or www.westaffit.com

Senior QA Validation Analyst - S. CA - Full Time Position. The Senior IT Validation/QA Analyst will use analytical, technical and organizational skills, and experience to deliver, through effective testing and/or validation, compliant systems and enhancements of existing systems to our business units (and departmental customers). The Senior IT Validation/QA Analyst will interface with business departmental customers and IT resources to deliver IT projects and enhancement requests (regulated and non-regulated systems). Pharmaceutical industry and Computer Systems Validation (CSV) experience is required. For full information: www.cgt-consult.com - CGT Consulting Inc. - cgt-consult.com

Senior Quality Assurance Engineer at Countrywide in Simi Valley. Contact: (805) 520-5206 or Kidra_Shadroo@Countrywide.Com.

Plantronics Staffing has several positions available in Santa Cruz. Visit www.plantronics.com/careers or Call Merrin Morse at 831.458.4404. The list includes:

Software Quality Assurance Engineer

Quality Assurance US-CA-Santa Cruz

Software Quality Assurance Engineer to support the Quality activities related to software dev

Sr. Technician (s)-Temporary

Quality Assurance US-CA-Santa Cruz

Implement verification test plans for new products

Product Assurance Engineer

Quality Assurance US-CA-Santa Cruz

Provide core team leadership for all Quality activities throughout the product definition

Compliance Engineer

Quality Assurance US-CA-Santa Cruz

Works with test labs and approval agencies to attain approvals

Technical Assistance Specialist - Gaming

Quality Assurance US-CA-Santa Cruz

Will provide technical assistance to Plantronics customers in a call center environment

Compliance and Component Engineering Manager, Quality Assurance US-CA-Santa Cruz

Manage attaining and maintaining regulatory and safety agency approvals

QA Testers and Analysts, RCM Technologies, Inc. (www.rcmt.com) 3-5 + years experience with both manual and automated testing, the ability to create test plans and test cases as well as write test scripts from scratch. Ideal candidates will have specific experience with WinRunner, but experience with other tools may also be acceptable. 800-972-6269

RecuitingManager has two open fulltime positions in Orange County. Software QA Manager and QA Engineer. Contact: "Sherilyn Allen" <sherilyn@recruitingmanager.com> or visit their website: http://www.recruitingmanager.com/careers.htm

Director of QA, based in Europe. Prerequisites include extensive experience managing/leading progressively larger QA teams. Strong Standards and Methodologies are also very important. Our client is a rapidly growing company in the telecommunications industry. Attractive compensation, paid accommodations, automobile, and other benefits. Contact: Gary Stein, BA, MBA,Business Development Manager, FERN STEVENS & ASSOCIATES, 4950 Yonge Street, Suite 1102, North York, Ontario, M2N 6K1. PH:416) 928-1212 EXT 228 FAX: (416) 928-0555 garys@fernstevens.com www.fernstevens.com

Multiple positions in Canoga Park, CA:

1. Quality Assurance Lead/Manager that has recent hands-on experience with Winrunner

2. Functional Q/A Analyst that has recent experience testing Internet based applications

3 Q/A Lead/Manager

Al Karaptian, eQuest Solutions, 310.937.3388

al@eQuestSolutions.com

Our Corporate Meeting Sponsors

Serena, Corp. at 20920B Warner Center Lane, Woodland Hills, is our very first chapter Corporate Meeting Sponsor. We very much appreciate their sponsorship, which provides the SCQAA San Fernando Board with a fine workspace for our Board meetings.

Countrywide, Corp. in Simi Valley is our second chapter Corporate Meeting Sponsor, as they are providing Membership meeting space, starting with the first monthly meeting on September 17, 2003.

QAI Certification Programs

To request more information, send email to certify@qaiusa.com.

Earn CPEs

Are you a CQA or CSTE? Earn some of your Continuing Professional Education (CPE) points by attending SCQAA-SF meetings. Earn even more by helping with our committees!

Southern California Quality Assurance Association San Fernando Chapter (SCQAA-SF)

QAI Certification Programs

To request more information, send email to certify@qaiusa.com.

Meet Your SCQAA

San Fernando Chapter Board

The current Board slate is composed of:

Position	Board Member	Backup Member
Chapter Chair	Judy Cheves	Shahidul Manan
Vice Chair	Shahidul Manan
Treasurer	Deanna Witrack	Judy Cheves
Secretary	John Heeg	TBD
Chapter Advisor	Jim Stoumpos
Distribution Chair	Gerry Caruso	Karina Gamble
Employment Opportunity Chair	Tina Tararache
Events/Promotion	TBD
Food Service Chair	Peter Reidy
Librarian\Historian	Lenni Lara
Meeting Chair	Kidra Shadroo
Membership Chair	Ron Winters
Newsletter Chair	Elizabeth Runyon	Deanna Witrack
PMI Liaison	Bill Hackenberg
Program/Education Chair	Karina Gamble
Sponsor/PR Chair	Bob Tabaka	Bill Hackenberg
Web Team	Shahidul Mannan Kidra Shadroo Leonard Daly
Webmaster	TBD

Would you like to be a speaker and have a topic of interest to the quality community? Contact the Program Chair (karina@qainsight.com) or Chapter Chairperson (Judy.cheves@Countrywide.com) and let us know what you would like to contribute.

Would you like to contribute information to this Newsletter? Contact the Newsletter editor at this address: scqaasf_newsletter@sbcglobal.net.

The SCQAA San Fernando Board holds monthly Board Meetings at Serena Inc. in Woodland Hills. If you would like to attend the Board meeting and would like to help this chapter, please contact Judy Cheeves at E-Mail (Judy.cheves@Countrywide.com ) to obtain the meeting schedule and location.

Subscription Information

"Quality In Blue" e-mails are never sent unsolicited. SCQAA-SF only sends e-mails to registered members. To unsubscribe, send just the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line to: scqaasf_newsletter@sbcglobal.net. If someone forwarded this newsletter to you and you want your own free subscription, e-mail to scqaasf_newsletter@sbcglobal.net

Would you like to advertise in our "Quality in Blue" newsletter? mailto:newsletter@scqaa.us

We'd love to hear from you. Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Please help us respond to your requests and input by writing to one of the Board members. See our contact list at http://scqaa.us/contact.php

Privacy policy: We will not distribute your name or e-mail address to anyone, other than for SCQAA or QAI chapter purposes.

Directions to Our Meeting Location in Simi Valley:

You might want to check out driving directions from your starting point on yahoo.com, but here is how you will finish the trip:

Countrywide Financial 2900 Madera Road, Simi Valley, CA 93065 1C Central Lobby Presentation & Video Make your way to CA-118 and go to Simi Valley Exit CA-118 on Madera Road North Go 0.3 miles then turn right on North Madera Road Go 0.3 miles past Countrywide Way to first driveway on the right: 2900 North Madera Road. Follow the driveway up and around the building on your right and park on the other side (which is actually the front). Conference room 1C is right off the main lobby.