Author Archive

Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 22nd at 6:00PM. Please RSVP to news@ssq.org.

Main Topic

The Score

Gregg Oliver, Pathfinder Communications

Have you ever wanted to learn to persuade a decision maker or inspire a team? Are you confident that you can soothe an irate customer or convince people of an idea’s merits? Do you feel capable of successfully delivering constructive criticism? Would you like to be the person recognized as the person who “really makes things happen”?

Face-to-face communication is not a talent that people are born with; it is a learned skill. You need to know “The Score”. In this session, you will learn the 12 key factors in transforming your critical discussions into productive and how to implement them. Using this, you will be able to impact and persuade a decision maker, inspire a team, soothe an irate customer, convince people of an idea’s merits, and more! You will learn to understand and to be understood.

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NEW DATE: Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 1st at 6:00PM. Please RSVP to news@ssq.org.

Warm-Up Topic

Our 15 minute warm-up presentation is An Overview of HP Quality Center, by Gregorio Cruz of SAIC.

Main Topic

Managing a Successful User Acceptance Test

Sara Jones, SAIC

It’s just days before you plan to go live with the new system. The User Acceptance Test (UAT) is the only thing that stands in the way. Will it be successful? Will the users devote the time they committed to so long ago to perform the tests? Will there be agreement among the users about whether the system is “acceptable” to them?—“It doesn’t do what I want” vs. “It meets the specifications.” Sara Jones describes strategies that empower test teams and users to plan and execute an efficient UAT. She describes techniques she uses to secure and maintain a time commitment from users, ensure the users are ready for UAT, manage scope creep during UAT planning, and process feedback from the users. Learn how to present the UAT results in a complete and understandable format to quickly enable the correct “Go” or “No Go” decision.

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Our July, 2009 meeting will be held on Tuesday, July 28th at 6:00PM. Please RSVP to news@ssq.org.

Topic

Baselines and Models: Duh, I Don’t Get It!

Diane Mizukami-Williams, Northrop Grumman Mission Systems

People get frustrated when they attend presentations on baselines and models and they are only taught WHAT you are required to do for baselines and models, but are not taught HOW to create baselines and models, which is where people struggle. This presentation will show how to use statistical analysis to determine the right number of baselines and how to create a useful model.

Diane received a Top 10 Presenters award for this topic at the 2009 SEPG conference.

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