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The Southern California Quality Assurance Association (SCQAA) San Fernando Chapter presents

Help! I'm Stuck in a Meeting and They Ran out of Donuts

How to Hold Meetings That End With Results

Steve Kaye, Ph.D.

Wednesday, November 3, 2004 at Countrywide, 2900 Madera, Simi Valley, CA 93065

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

Meetings are an essential part of your business. When you use them for planning, they determine your future. When you use them to find solutions, they determine your profitability. Yet, businesses waste an average of 20% of their professional payroll on bad meetings. This program shows people how to hold meetings that end with results others support. You will learn how to hold fewer, shorter, more effective meetings. This program is a must if you want to look like a leader in your meetings.

 

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Steve Kaye, Ph.D. is The Meeting Master. He has written two books and a booklet on Effective Meetings, published over 180 articles on leadership skills, and appeared on radio and TV. His workshops have informed and inspired people nationwide since 1992. He is also a Certified Professional Facilitator (by the International Association of Facilitators). He has has a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and 20 years of experience working for major corporations.

Managing Quality: “Quality Management Culture,” Pre-Meeting Bootcamp! This informative half hour training session, presented by Bill Hackenberg and Shahidul Mannan of Countrywide, is an added bonus based on real life experience. Come a half hour early at 6:15 to learn and enjoy!

Fee: $10 nonmembers; Free for members Questions? Contact scqaasf_newsletter@sbcglobal.net

Membership: $65/year standard (one year of meetings); $100/year (one year of meetings + training discount)

Message from yourEditor: Elizabeth Runyon

We have had a wonderful set of meetings during 2004, with fine speakers and attendance at each of the monthly chapter meetings. During December, we will be preparing our schedule for 2005 and would very much appreciate any feedback or suggestions for the coming cycle of speakers and meetings.

Steven Kaye, always personable and engaging, will provide our grand finale meeting presentation at next Wednesday evening’s chapter meeting. You don’t want to miss seeing him in person!

You also don’t want to miss the networking session prior to the meeting, conducted by Bill Hackenberg and Shihidul Mannan of Countrywide. Come a little early for great discussion and great food!

I want to thank everybody who contributed to our monthly Newsletter, particularly Gerry Caruso, who has provided copyediting and distribution support these many months.

Regards,

Elizabeth

SCQAA-SF Meetings – Door Prizes

If you have stopped attending our meetings lately, you are missing out on some really GREAT door prizes. At our last meeting in July we gave away a Visioneer 7100 USB flatbed 48 bit color scanner with powerful document software. For the month of August we have another great prize!!! A Canon LiDE 30 USB flatbed 48 bit color scanner with powerful document software. Use it to scan those old pictures to e-mail to your friends & family, make copies of important documents, or scan items for faxing or e-mail. Use the included Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to convert documents/articles/text into documents that you can share electronically. Be sure to attend so you can have an opportunity to win this flexible, powerful, and convenient scanner!

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, December 1, 2004 Monthly Meeting in Countrywide, Simi Valley, CA No Chapter Meeting this month! Wednesday, January 5, 2005 Monthly Meeting in Countrywide, Simi Valley, CA Speaker: TBD, Topic: TBD Wednesday, February 2, 2005 Monthly Meeting in Countrywide, Simi Valley, CA Speaker: TBD, Topic: TBD

Quality Meetings Upcoming

October 26-29, 200419th International Forum on COCOMO and Software Cost Modeling. Sponsored by Center for Software Engineering. Location: Los Angeles, CA. http://cse.usc.edu/cse/pub/event/2004/COCOMO/COCOMO-SCM19.html

October 28, 2004 6 – 9 PM Six Sigma: What is it? And why is Project Management so Important? By Joe DeSimone. Sponsored by PMI Los Padres Chapter. Location: Clarion Hotel, Thousand Oaks. http://pmi-lospadres.org/index.phtml

Oct. 29, 2004 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM What's Scary in Healthcare? Sponsored by HIMSS-Southern California. NEW LOCATION: Doubletree Hotel, Anaheim/Orange County, 100 The City Drive, Orange, CA 92868. http://www.himss-socal.org/

November 9, 2004 6 – 9 PM Technology Outlook: A Panel of CIOs Discussing Major Trends, How They're Leveraging New Technologies, & How They're Making their Firms More Competitive. Annual Event presented by AITP-LA and Software Council of Southern California at The Doubletree Inn, Santa Monica. Reservation phone at (562) 928-5353. http://www.aitp-la.org/

November 11, 2004 Topic TBA. Speaker: Jack Wormington, Vice President, Program Execution Assessment, The Aerospace Corporation. Sponsored by PMI – Los Angeles http://www.pmi-la.org/

November 15-19, 2004 STARWEST 2004

International Conference on Software Testing Analysis & Review in Anaheim, California. Conference Web site: http://www.sqe.com/swaitpla Conference brochure: http://www.sqe.com/downloads/starwest.pdf Master schedule: http://www.sqe.com/starwest/glance.asp To register: http://www.sqe.com/swreg AITP-LA Members save 20% off registration fees! Please use promo code APWV when registering to receive your discount. For more information, call 888-268-8770 or 904-278-0524.

November 18, 2004 6 – 9 PM Predicting Project Disasters by Paul Glen. Sponsored by PMI Los Padres Chapter. Location: Clarion Hotel, Thousand Oaks. http://pmi-lospadres.org/index.phtml

Sunday November 21, 2004 9 – 5 XML - Learn the Next Software Paradigm presented by ACM during a full day PDS (Professional Development Seminar) at the Ramada Hotel in Culver City. Contact: la-http://la-acm.org

December 7-8, 2004 Facilitated Risk Assessment and Assessment Process, offered by Tom Peltier and Justin Peltier of Peltier and Associates, sponsored by SCQAA-LA at AAA-California in Orange County. $600 fee. http://www.isacala.org/doc/Peltier_FRAAP_Seminar.pdf

December 9-10, 2004 How to Manage Network Vulnerability Assessment, ethical hacking session offered by Tom Peltier and Justin Peltier of Peltier and Associates, sponsored by SCQAA-LA at AAA-California in Orange County. $600 fee. http://www.isacala.org/doc/Peltier_FRAAP_Seminar.pdf

January 27, 2005 6 – 9 PM Managing Offshore Projects by Leslie Swanson, President, eXalt Solutions. Sponsored by PMI Los Padres Chapter. Location: Clarion Hotel, Thousand Oaks. http://pmi-lospadres.org/index.phtml

April 11-13, 2005. ISACA – LA Spring Conference. http://isacala.org/

Job Opportunities

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

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.

Our Corporate Sponsors

Kaiser Permanente, headquartered in Oakland, is sponsoring SCQAA-SF this year to enable its Southern California employees to take advantage of chapter meetings and instructor-led QAI training.

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	TBD
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.