More than 70 percent of software projects are late and over budget. About 40 percent of projects end up being net money losers: they cost more for the organization than they ever return. The reasons behind this poor performance are varied, but can usually be traced to bad decisions--either on the part of the development team or the customer, or both. Bad decisions on WHAT to develop, or HOW to develop it. Despite the fact that there is so much information available on HOW to develop software, there's remarkably little about WHY to develop it in the first place. Clearly knowing WHY will illuminate decisions on WHAT and HOW. In addition to discussing WHY to develop software, this presentation describes a systematic process for making better decisions about WHAT to develop and HOW to develop it.

---

About the Speaker

Steve Tockey, author of Return on Software: Maximizing the Return on Your Software Investment.

Steve Tockey is the Principal Consultant at Construx Software. He has been employed in the software industry since 1977, and has worked as a programmer, analyst, designer, researcher, consultant, and adjunct professor. Steve is the designated corporate representative to the Object Management Group (OMG, the source of the UML).

During his career, which has included stints at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, The Boeing Company, and Rockwell Collins, Inc., Steve has obtained an in-depth knowledge of software engineering practices, including software project management, estimation, software quality techniques, object-oriented development and distributed object computing. He is widely published and has extensive experience with software development and maintenance at all levels of application, as well as knowledge of various hardware.

Steve has a Master's of Software Engineering (6/93) from Seattle University as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science (12/81) from the University of California, Berkeley. He is also an IEEE Computer Society Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP).

Steve is the author of Return on Software, a book designed to help software professionals maximize the return on their software investment.

To contact Steve Tockey, send email to steve.tockey@construx.com or call him at (425) 636.0100.