2008 SEPG Summary

Well, the 2008 SEPG Conference is now a thing of the past. This SEPG was a very informative conference this year. There were many excellent presentations on a variety of topics. Highlights for me were Pat O'Toole's and Herb Weiner's presenation of the ATLAS results for the suggested changes to the High Maturity Process Areas, the keynote speeches on Wednesday by Major General Curtis M. Bedke/Commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory and Karthik and Guha Bala/Vicarious Visions on their use of the Team Software Process (TSP), and the Booz Allen Hamilton presentation on aiding Small Disadvantaged Businesses in achieving Maturity Level 2. Major General Bedke spoke on the increasing importance of software to the Air Force's various applications. And it was a little scary calling up images of Skynet, T2000, and "Judgement Day" since he talked about intelligent robots repairing themselves and learning from their mistakes. The Bala brothers were energetic and fun to listen to. And I was very pleased to see that the gaming industry has matured enough now that they realize the need for discipline in their processes. It apparently only took one bad experience in delivering a game for them to realize that they needed help and TSP was their answer. Their presentation was a great segue after the Air Force as the games they produce include Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, and Spiderman. And of course there was the exhibit hall with several news vendors at the conference this year. The biggest improvement at the 2008 SEPG was the SEI not requiring the attendees to wear the iTag anchors around our necks in order to track attendance at the various sessions. All that you had to do this year was scan a bar code on your badge when you entered a session. And everyone had to revert to the tried and true method of exchanging business cards when you met new people.