Call for participation

Workshop at OOPSLA, Montreal, October 2007

Managing Complexity

Klaus Marquardt
Dräger Medical 
Germany
Email: marquardt@acm.org
 Lise Hvatum
Schlumberger
USA
Email: hvatum1@slb.com
 Jens Coldewey
Coldewey Consulting
Germany
Email: jens_coldewey@acm.org

Main topics, Keywords

Software Eingineering Practices; Experience with Systems; Architecture; Project Management

Abstract

Projects, once stranded, suffocate from their own weight.

The weight of the project is the complexity that it has created, or that has been burdened upon it. Complexity of the problem, of the organization, of the chosen solution, of the environment and of the team dynamics.

While complexity cannot be avoided, it can be influenced and managed. This workshop explores how complexity arrives at a project, how it can be measured, what heuristics indicate risk, and how complexity can be managed and overcome.

Contents

There is more than just metrics. What are the symptoms of creeping complexity? What are the causes?
Established metrics are available on the requirements, the design and code, and at the test level. Are these helpful to estimate the overall project risk? What else needs to be considered and measured?
After all, it is just a fact of life.
Can you trade different kinds of complexity for one another? Do risk management practices apply and suffice?

Attendees

Every interested practitioner, consultant, academic, or otherwise interested person is invited to apply for attendance. We primarily seek submissions from people who have already worked in projects of a medium to large size, or researched relevant settings.
Applicants (and organizers) need to submit a position statement not later than August 31st. The position paper describes approaches to one or more of the questions raised in the contents description. The authors will be notified about acceptance by September 15th. The workshop will be limited to 20 persons.

About the Organizers

Klaus Marquardt (marquardt@acm.org) is a technical manager and system architect with Dräger Medical in Lübeck, Germany. His experiences include life supporting systems, and large international projects. Klaus is particularly interested in the relations between technology, organization, people, and process. He has contributed numerous patterns and sessions at various conferences including OOP, JAOO, ACCU, SPA, and OOPSLA.

Lise Hvatum. Master in Computer Science from University of Oslo, 1988. Currently she is a senior software manager with Schlumberger, with extensive project management experience. She has worked in the oilfield services industry for 19 years, mainly on applications for seismic exploration and drilling. Her expertise is within large real-time systems, data acquisition, job planning and control applications, agile practices and distributed development. She is an active member of the patterns community, member of Hillside and Hillside Europe, Conference Chair for EuroPLoP 2006, Program Chair for EuroPLoP 2007, current Secretary for the Hillside Board. Since 2004, she has captured patterns for distributed development, and participated in several PLoP and EuroPLoP workshops.

Jens Coldewey (jens_coldewey@acm.org) is an independent consultant from Munich, Germany, specialized in deploying agile development in large organizations. He was program chair of the EuroPLoP ’98 conference, member of the program committee of the PLoP ’98, PLoP ’99, EuroPLoP ’99, XP 2002 - 2003, Agile Development Conference 2003, Agile 2005, OOPSLA 2003, 2004 and 2006 conferences. He was co-organizer of a series of workshops in past OOPSLAs, including  the workshops “Human Issues of Agile Processes“ (2001), “Commonalities of Agile Methodologies“ (2002), “Are Agile Methods Really Different” (2003), “Customer Role in Agile Projects” (2004), and “Beyond the Project Myth” (2205). He was board member of the Agile Alliance Non-Profit Organization and is member of the Agile Project Management Practice of the Cutter Consortium, Cambridge, MA.

(c) 2007 Klaus Marquardt up
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