Participants Enjoy Rich Technical Program at 2017 SEI Software Solutions Symposium
• Article
April 11, 2017—Nearly 150 attendees participated in the 2017 SEI Software Solutions Symposium, which took place March 20-23, 2017, in Alexandria, Virginia. Symposium participants represented a diverse variety of organizations from the Department of Defense (DoD), civilian government agencies, and industry. The symposium offered participants a rich technical program that addressed solutions to the challenges of developing, acquiring, and sustaining software-reliant systems.
“We had a lively and productive symposium,” said Symposium Chair William Pollak. “The tutorials were well received, and it was good to see participants sharing ideas and solutions to the software and system challenges they face.”
This year’s program of tutorials covered a wide range of topics, including
- Agile in Government: Concepts for Senior Leaders
- Eliciting Innovative Requirements for DoD Systems: The KJ+ Method
- Security Risk Management Using the Security Engineering Risk Analysis
- What Systems Engineers Need to Know About Software
- Strategic Management of Technical Debt
- Secure DevOps Process and Implementation
The symposium also featured an impressive slate of keynote speakers. J. Michael Gilmore, Director, Operational Test and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Defense discussed his experience with cybersecurity testing and lessons learned from vulnerabilities. Heidi Shyu, former Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, examined ways to leverage the explosive growth in software capabilities for the military and the unique software challenges facing the DoD. Harry Lee, Senior Computer Scientist for U.S. Census Bureau, and Deborah Woods, Program Executive Officer for Command, Control, Communications, and Computers (C4) in the Center for Special Operations Forces’ Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology at U.S. Special Operations Command also spoke about their challenges and solutions.
Evaluations surveys from attendees were consistently positive. Matt Bader of the Government Accounting Office praised the “very strong background of the presenters and grounding of presentations in research, [as opposed to] theoretical hypothesizing.” Arlene Minkiewicz, Chief Scientist at Price Systems, cited “great [tutorials]” on technical debt and cost estimation, “informative presentations, great keynotes, [and] good network[ing] opportunities.”
To learn more about the 2017 Software Solutions Symposium and to download presentation materials, visit https://www.sei.cmu.edu/sss/2017/.
