PPMP 2: Second USC ITV Summer '99 Offering of PPMP

[In construction...
To express immediate interest contact AWBrown@USC.edu, 213/740-6599]

 

Personal Software Engineering Project Management Process (PPMP)

(Live Course)

 

A. Winsor Brown, Assistant Director

USC Center for Software Engineering

USC has been teaching a subset of PSP, the Personal Software Engineering Project Management Process (PPMP), covering the first half of PSP with a twist. The first two parts of the first half of PSP are Phase 1, Building a baseline: current development practices and more, basic measures (defects and time), size measurement; and Phase 2, Planning: size estimating, test report; resource and schedule estimates, task planning. The twist is that all the exercises are done using spreadsheets that produce a superset of the tools produced by students in a regular PSP course. The course philosophy remain unchanged. It still consists of gradually introducing new process approach methods; practicing them on small spreadsheets; and letting you see for yourself how these methods help you.

Watts Humphrey defines PSP as having four levels with seven processes. The first two levels are "Personal Process Baseline" and "Personal Planning Process". The baseline includes two processes, PSP0 and PSP0.1, which cover the current process plus time, defect and size recording. The planning process includes two processes also: size estimating, and task planning and schedule planning. PPMP covers these same two levels and four processes, almost verbatim, corresponding to classes one through 7 of a fifteen-week semester.

Like the professional development version of PSP, there is very little homework. All of the "programming" exercises are done using spreadsheets after being started in class along with demonstrations of the new PPMP/PSP concepts introduced during the lecture. The exercises utilized in this course are different from those used in a standard PSP course in that they are more practical and focused on personal project management. All spreadsheet exercises may be submitted to the instructor via fax or e-mail. This PPMP PD course also includes a Personal Writing Process which is to be used on the only work required to receive PPMP PD completion credit--three short reports. All lecture notes, exercises, and support material will be made available over the WWW.

PPMP is PSP levels 0 through 1.1. It covers the same content as the first six PSP graduate course classes. It teaches and practices the data gathering activities, and it covers the same techniques, including line of code counting, estimating, resource and schedule planning, earned valued tracking and replanning, reuse, and process measurement. The same tool capabilities are produced, with the exception of the personal lines of code counters. The same practical, applied statistics are taught. It can and is being used as basis for teaching the rest of PSP, levels 2.0 through 3.0.

At the same time, it is different from the normal first half of the PSP course in that the exercises are different, a little more practical, and focused on personal project management. The exercises use tools common in project management even at the personal level: spreadsheets and word processors. Skill and understanding of these tools should also be part of any software engineer's tool kit. Spreadsheets are used to implement support for personal software project management tasks such as linear regression, prediction intervals, personal LOC "database", and multiple linear regression: all used in the Proxy Based Estimating (PROBE) method. Spreadsheets are also developed to assist in earned value planning and tracking, which is not done in PSP.

PPMP is a complete coures in itself. It is also an appropriate introduction to PSP for line management and development support specialists.

Schedule

 

WF, 6/30 to 8/6, 1999

9:00 AM - 12:00 noon

    OR

 

June 30

9:00 AM - 12:00 noon

 

July 7, 9, 14, 16, 21, 23, 28 & 30

9:00 AM - 12:00 noon

 

August 4 & 6

9:00 AM - 12:00 noon

Number of Lectures: 12.


NOTE: In addition to the PPMP PD course, the CS599 course will meet
WF, June 30 to August 6, 1999 12:00 noon - 1:00 p.m., and
M, July 12 to August 9, 1999 9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Prerequisites:

1. Recent professional software development experience.

2. Development environment access, either brought to the ITV classroom (e.g. laptop) or within the immediate neighborhood of the classroom.

Fees:

1) Course Fee: $2,000.

2) Set of photocopied notes (incl. in course fee)

3) Text, A Discipline for Software Engineering, W. Humphrey, Addison-Wesley (incl. in course fee)

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

INTERACTIVE INSTRUCTIONAL TELEVISION NETWORK

To enroll, contact Mr. Ray Fujioka, Program Coordinator, USC IITV
Fujioka@rcf.usc.edu 213/740-0119

Participating Company & Public sites | PSP | CS599 = 1/2 CS665